A £225m D-Day

You didn't have to go to Cairo to get your share of chaos this week. Here in England, Monday was transfer deadline day, and it turned out - without warning - to be one of the most exciting in living memory...and the most outrageous.

Football's had a lot to talk about coming into 2011, peaking last week with the Keys-Gray "sexism" saga. The frenzy that surrounded that - and the subsequent sacking/resignation - meant that, going into Monday, #transferdeadlineday wasn't as trendy as it woud have liked to have been.

That disappointment didn't last long. Granted, the best the morning/noon period of Monday could offer was a Paul Konchesky switch to Forest and news of a Spurs move for Aguero. At the same time - in the background - was gossip of a Liverpool bid for Newcastle's Andy Carroll - but a very real Spurs interest meant that it went largely unnoticed.

Come lunchtime though, it looked more reality than rumour. The Guardian website were shocked when they realised the story had substance: Newcastle have turned down a £30m - £30m! - bid from Liverpool for Andy Carroll... what they didn't know then was how that bid was to unfold.

Whilst it did though, bids, medicals and deals were flying all over the place - quite literally for Torres, who took a chopper down to Chelsea (or didn't). Rather surprisingly, Harry wasn't near any of it (albeit for a failed Phil Neville - yep, Phil Neville - offer). As it turned out, the Torres deal smothered the arrival of David Luiz from Benfica. And really, it should have took the limelight across the whole market too.

But if the Guardian were shocked at £30m for Carroll, they'd have keeled over when £5m had been added by the end of the day. The move dwarfed the £23m Suarez arrival from Ajax - a deal that otherwise would have stolen the headlines (particularly had they known he'd score on his debut). So it was that at £35m, Andy Carroll - with just 41 P.L appearances and not even a full 90 minutes of international football to his name - became the 8th most expensive player in history.

The deadline day drama ended with Premier League clubs spending £225m over January; last year, they spent under £30m. It's stats like that which make you wonder whether our economy really is as dismal as it is suppsoed to be - and you can't help but question why football is exempt.

Certainly, Monday was manic, and in many cases, just wrong; Andy Carroll is not worth £35m and Chelsea should not be spending £70m on the day they announced losses for the same amount. But foreign investment changes the rules that decide what is right and wrong - especially in as bespoke a market as football.

And remember, Wenger kept the purse strings tight - maybe, just, there's still more sense than money at the height of the Premier League.