Forget the thrill of the chase, only rarely do football’s biggest signings work out

The Nations League drags on, a good idea cheapened by circumstances as weary fans and weary journalists try to summon the will to care about weary players playing out what numerous managers have admitted they’re treating as World Cup preparation, wearily. Who can summon the energy to care about who might be England’s third-choice right-back? Who can be bothered to watch another VAR replay of two feet coming together? If a player wonders whether yet another forward surge to block a passing lane is worth it, who can blame him?

It’s getting so bad that even adding up the combined age of Belgium’s centre-backs is beginning to lose its lustre. It’s not just that the compression of the calendar because of Covid, the November World Cup and greed has left everybody fatigued, it’s that the Nations League is eating into the most wonderful time of the year: the transfer window.

The modern obsession with transfers is baffling, but what has become apparent is that a not insignificant subsection of football culture – journalists and fans, and probably directors too – seems almost to prefer the market to the game. At the beginning of September and February each year there are fevered debates about who “won the window”, as though trading players were an end in itself and not a means to winning football matches.

There’s a form of utopian world-building to it, heightened surely by the impact of computer management simulations. Just as the draw can often seem the best part of a tournament, as we imagine contests between the purest form of each side, unsullied by injury or form, so a player is at his most perfect when he signs.

We ponder how this new centre-forward at his best will link up with his teammates, before it becomes apparent that