THE transfer window closes in five days and as things stand we are in for a pretty quiet January windows in a long time.

Only six Premier League clubs have spent more than £1million on a player so far this month, but in the coming days that will almost certainly all change, as clubs hit the panic button and agents holding out for a better deal get what they want.

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Yet here’s the thing: English football initially wanted the transfer window because it would create more stability and stop agents hawking players around for deals.

How could they have got it so wrong?

The current system encourages blind panic from all sides and usually leaves agents holding the trump card. Not exactly what it was designed to do.

Transfer deadline day might be great viewing, it might keep Jim White in a job and it might make yellow ties fashionable for one day, but there is a reason the final day of both the summer and winter windows tend to be so busy.

With a deadline in place the selling club, or the player’s agent, knows they are often king in the deal. If they hold out long enough, and the buying club are convinced of the need to sign a player, then they will get the deal done eventually, usually in the closing hours of the window.

By virtue of that deadline being in place the transfer window has created a mood of alarm among clubs and players. It’s a long way from the stability it was supposed to create.

Earlier this season Sean Dyche said how Burnley had been quoted excessive prices for players they were after from the Championship. Ross McCormack’s £11m move to Fulham no doubt inflated prices in that league, but was there also a hope among some clubs that the Clarets, a newly promoted team keen to add to their squad, would cave in.

Most January transfer windows are dominated by teams at the bottom of the table, paralysed by fear that they could be relegated and fall off the Premier League gravy train.

So far Leicester, QPR and Sunderland have each signed a forward, while Burnley’s only deal has been to make Michael Keane’s loan permanent. But it would be no surprise if any of the bottom eight sides suddenly found themselves busy on Monday.

The other unwanted impact of this transfer window is the proliferation of managers losing their jobs in December or early January. With only one month for a new manager to bring in his own players, it has become an easy time to dispense with the services of an under-performing boss.

Calls to scrap the transfer window, and either have just a summer window, or revert back to the all-year round system, have been growing. It is certainly difficult to see what this month-long transfer jamboree, that usually ends in a deadline day of panic, chaos and over-spending, is achieving.

The transfer window has fostered a culture that is exactly the opposite of its stated aims. It’s time to put an end to this madness.