Opinion - Breaking news ... rumour mill in overdrive

Now in its 12th year, the closing of the summer transfer window has become a celebrated event among football fans as they stay up into the small hours to see who their club has or has not signed.

But has it not all become a bit too predictable?

Seeing a drug-induced Jim White manically screaming down the camera while roving reporters talk in the grave tone of those describing a terrorist attack, when in fact they are informing us that Sky sources understand Louis Dodds could be going on loan from Port Vale to Rochdale.

Some of this week’s highlights include the breaking-news ticker, ostensibly a device to be reserved for JFK moments, in which Evian have signed Youssouf Sabaly, while Volvic and Buxton are battling for the signature of Tommy Svindal Larsen.

There was also the bit where a group of surly youths mob the Sky reporter at Tottenham’s training base followed by the Sky man at said training base announcing that Erik Lamela didn’t walk his usual way out of the door after training and wondering what it could all mean.

Don’t get me wrong I freely admit to liking a ridiculous rumour and often take to social media to start such rumours.

The thought of seeing a £50m South American wandering around outside the Pound Bakery in the centre of Wigan is superb.

And why do clubs leave it so late to get players in? Are they given royalties for the amount of drama they can bring out of a transfer?

If it isn’t Benjani falling asleep in the airport, it’s the fax machine jamming at ten minutes to midnight.

I mean a fax machine in 2014 -really?

But transfer deadline day isn’t really about transfers any more.

It’s about Sky Sports News: the Movie, a peerless satire of a sport that has lost reality’s contact details.

In January I’m tempted to get a mate with a decent car to drive me up and down Wigan Lower Road while I sit in the back behind tinted windows with a baseball cap on just to see how Twitter

reacts.