Fans tracking private planes, agents fuelling the rumour mill and pointless hour-by-hour updates: Inside the mad world of the football transfer window The Premier League transfer window has closed after another mad summer By Lewis Steele Published: 02:00 BST, 31 August 2024 | Updated: 02:00 BST, 31 August 2024 e-mail View comments There was a bit of a quirk for 2024 standards earlier this month when Tottenham signed winger Wilson Odobert from Burnley . By Mail Sport’s rough calculations, the transfer was the only high-profile move this summer that came completely out of the blue. In this social-media age, transfers are trailed for weeks, months and, in the case of Kylian Mbappe to Real Madrid , even years in advance.
Hourly, often pointless updates are offered on potential deals – and Big Six clubs are loosely linked with tens of players each summer. This is perhaps a bizarre line to write in a newspaper but, for the kids of today, logging on to X or Instagram as the first thing they do upon waking up is the modern-day equivalent of reading your favourite sports pages over a cup of coffee and breakfast in the morning. Outlets like this one have been forced to adapt.
In Mail Sport’s case, we had our fantastic live blog running around the clock on Friday packed with exclusive scoops and insight from the best team in sports journalism. Even Sky Sports News have been left playing catch-up somewhat. Just over a decade ago, this reporter remembers pacing home from school to w.