AND they say a week’s a long time in politics… Seven days ago, Burnley supporters were getting excited at the prospect of the most protracted transfer deal in the game’s history finally being concluded and the arrival at Turf Moor, for the first time in a long time, of a genuinely creative and attacking midfielder.

Meanwhile, down at Ashton Gate, Steve Cotterill was preparing to tie up a headline-grabbing deal for a promising young striker who would score the goals to keep the Robins in the division.

Fast-forward a week and Henri Lansbury is still an employee of Nottingham Forest, Andre Gray has become Burnley’s record signing and, if it knows what’s good for it, Steve Cotterill’s cat has gone into hiding to avoid its owner venting his frustrations on it.

There’s little to add to what has already been said about the Lansbury saga other than it might be best for us to avoid doing business with Forest until Dougie Freedman and Fawaz Al-Hasawi work out between them exactly who’s supposed to be in charge of player sales at the City Ground.

As for Gray’s arrival, it’s fair to say it’s caused more than a stir of excitement amongst supporters.

The claret and blue faithful are used to seeing promising young strikers coming to the club and developing over the course of two or three seasons a la Rodriguez, Austin and Ings.

Gray, however, with an 18-goal season under his belt and a good start to this one, is clearly much closer to the finished article.

Spending £6 million on one of the Championship’s most-coveted assets can’t be seen as anything other than a statement of intent.

And if Sean Dyche is to be taken at his word, it doesn’t sound as though the wallet is being put away. “We are looking to spend as much money as we can,” the manager said last week. “We are actively trying to look for big signings – and if it needs big money we will back it.”

This might be regarded as something of a Damascene conversion for Dyche who, only a couple of weeks back, declared himself “absolutely amazed” at the level of spending in the Championship.

If so, then good. It’s about time we saw some tangible benefits of our season in the Premier League. And having lost Trippier, Shackell and Ings over the summer, it’s not like we don’t need to recruit some big players to fill their boots.

A week’s a long time in football. Here’s hoping for some more eye-catching additions over the next seven days.