Ben Burgess column: Transfer window prices can be crazy but worthless

The last month of the window has featured more plots and sub- plots than a series of Game of Thrones.

The Premier League’s managers have struck upon the idea of ending the transfer window early for English clubs, so once the season starts they can no longer purchase players.

You can fully understand all the managers’ anguish at having their squad, which is settled and well drilled all pre-season, suddenly thrown into turmoil. Maybe they’ve even built their team around a star player!

Arsenal’s focal point was Alexis Sanchez, Swansea’s was Gylfi Sigurdsson and Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho.

All three clubs, whether the players have left or not, now find themselves with a big gaping hole where their best player used to be.

The players who have stayed are unhappy and will not play their best football until they get what they believe they deserve.

For clubs who lose star players, there is the headache of trying to replace them in an over inflated market.

In fact, these crazy prices, like £200m for Neymar and £97m for Ousmane Dembele, are worthless because you have to replace these players with other players who will be valued far higher than their actual worth.

Who remembers Liverpool getting £50m for Fernando Torres and everyone was congratulating them on such an amazing deal. Promptly they wasted £35m on Andy Carroll!

Bearing all this in mind, and the general disruption that an August 31 deadline brings, it makes sense to bring the deadline forward.

The only issue with the current proposals is that it would weaken the English teams’ position in relation to the rest of Europe.

European clubs would keep the current deadline and have the upper hand because they wouldn’t have any players unsettled from after August 1 but they would still be able to buy and unsettle players from England.

Our teams they would still face the prospect of losing their best players for a month but would not have the ability to replace them.

Certainly one of Gary Bowyer’s shrewdest moves in the transfer window was to snatch Sean Longstaff on loan from Newcastle.

Many teams courted Longstaff before he chose Blackpool and his goals and performances are beginning to show why.

At just 19, he has become a focal point for the team and his long-range shooting is like a rocket.

It’s been a long time since the Seasiders had a free-scoring midfielder who can shoot from distance. Charlie Adam was the last I can remember.

Alongside Longstaff’s third strike in as many games, it was good to see Kyle Vassell grab a goal against Oldham and get his season up and running.

While the fans and players were quite rightly happy with the Blackpool goals, there weren’t quite the scenes that were witnessed at the Bournemouth v Manchester City fixture last week.

That game was end to end, with both teams looking capable of scoring as the match moved into seven minutes of injury time.

Even the cool and composed Pep Guardiola was getting into heated arguments with his counterpart Eddie Howe.

Anyone who has played football, watched football or even anyone who’s not a robot can relate to that adrenaline rush of excitement when your team score an injury time winner.

As a player it’s extremely hard to control your emotions, so when Raheem Sterling scuffed the winner into the corner and turned to celebrate with the fans, who had driven hundreds of miles to support his team, you could understand his joy.

By this point a few fans had spilled over the hoardings. The stewards appeared to be overly-aggressive in dealing with the supporters.

In the space of a few minutes, calm was restored and Bournemouth were preparing to restart the game.

But wait, Mile Dean wanted to grab the limelight back and he promptly applied zero commonsense or compassion by deciding to send Sterling off.