Well that was a waste of time. Peter Crouch joined Stoke from Burnley. Or was it the other way round? The Mill can’t be bothered to find out; it spent deadline day in a state of torpor, bored witless by the absence of anything happening, other than one Sky Sports News reporter morphing into a snowman and Jim White linking himself with a £100m move to Manchester United as the 11pm cut-off approached. Cancel deadline day.

A total farce. It’s done. Jumped the shark. Lost its spark. Time to move on. After all, today’s gossip columns are full of tales of signings that, er, didn’t happen. For instance, Chelsea couldn’t get rid of Gary Cahill, who turned down various loan moves, apparently because he likes listening to The Liquidator blaring out before Chelsea home games. Meanwhile, Mauricio Pochettino will be absolutely delighted to see Vincent Janssen beaming at him when he arrives for Tottenham training today.

And even West Ham couldn’t shift Lucas Pérez or Javier Hernández. So we find ourselves concerned with things that aren’t going to happen. Arsenal aren’t going to sign Malcolm from Barcelona. Bayern Munich are cooling their interest in Chelsea’s Callum Hudson-Odoi. Tom Huddlestone’s dream of a loan move to Udinese is over. Eh?

But just as the Mill was thinking of announcing its retirement from the tittle-tattle game, its eyes fell upon a juicy morsel: Manchester United are plotting a £90m raid for Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho, formerly of Manchester City. That would appear to rule them out of spending £100m on Jim White. Bah!

All future transfer windows have been cancelled until further notice. We end on an amusing note. Apparently Maurizio Sarri was so disgusted with his players after Chelsea’s 4-0 humbling by Bournemouth that he refused to join them on the bus home. Instead he gorged on Toblerone and drove to Dundee in his bare feet. The beleaguered Chelsea manager faces a long journey to make it to Stamford Bridge in time for Saturday afternoon’s game against Martin from Wakefield’s Huddersfield Town.