If the buying period was shorter the playing out of footballer frustrations would be over in a few days rather than dragging on all through the summer
In newspaper terms this time of year has long been known as the silly season; everyone on their holidays, very little taking place in sport or politics, nothing much to report except exaggerated human interest stories or increasingly inane speculation.
In football terms that still applies. Everton made their earliest start to a season the other night and despite their entire European campaign hanging on the result against Ruzomberok it still felt like a mid-summer friendly. Ronald Koeman even excused a below-par performance by claiming you could not expect 100% from players after a mere three weeks of pre-season training.
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