January window suggests football is back on path that led to Super League bid

“Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer.”

So apparently it’s all fine now. European football’s winter window has closed. Premier League spending levels have returned to the upward curve of endless growth. The football locomotive powered entirely by self-replenishing gravy continues to rattle along the tracks at harum-scarum speed, still belching out fat hot greasy plumes of smoke and disgorging its load in the old familiar stops.

And like George Orwell’s farm, with its strict rules on exactly who gets the apples and the milk, an industry that always grows richer without ever feeling richer is happy to promote the idea that chaotic expense is evidence of life, vigour and stable future prospects.

Certainly this is the in-house view. “The Premier League continues to lead the way globally, retaining its status as the world’s biggest domestic football league,” read a statement by the league’s accountants Deloitte. And they are undoubtedly correct. But leading us where exactly?

There are two notable things about the last month’s business. First, around half of the league’s total £300m outlay was spent by the bottom five clubs in the Premier League, money disbursed out of fear rather than hope, at a time when falling out of the top tier can have disastrous consequence.

And second the headline deals have tended to involve football’s version of toxic human assets, transfers driven by the urge to save money as much as spend it. This is a new breed of elite player: out there circling the globe like radioactive waste ships, passed from port to port, turned toxic by their own contracts of employment.

Philippe Coutinho moved early, with Aston Villa agreeing to pay over