'IT'S dead.

There's tumbleweed all around. But you just know it's all going to get done very quickly and frenetically and - probably - badly in the last 48 hours of the transfer window. Either that or there will be some big move that injects liquidity and creates a domino effect."

That was the verdict of one licensed FIFA agent speaking on Thursday. Deals had been set up, numbers had been talked, but - broadly speaking - nobody was pulling the trigger.

As of Friday evening, the pickings were slim, at least in the Premier League. In the £3m plus bracket there was Wilfried Bony to Manchester

City, Kyle Naughton to Swansea and Andrej Kramaric to Leicester City.

Bony's move obviously facilitated Naughton's and Kramaric was a guy whose agents were desperate to place.

Beyond that, you're looking at lower division guys (Matt Grimes to Swansea), youngsters (Michael Keane to Burnley), exotics (Canadian international Donell Henry from Cyprus to West Ham), a kid from Poland (Krystian Bielik to Arsenal), the return of Jermain Defoe (in a swap) and some rather non-box office loans: Phillip Wollscheid to Stoke, Yaya Sanogo to Crystal Palace, Eljero Elia to Swansea and one or two others. That last batch, combined, moved less than £10m.

History suggests there will be a flurry of moves over the next week.

And it's only further proof of the irrationality of the market.

You'd think it wouldn't be that way. After all, clubs have both the incentive and the means to get business done early. They can easily do their negotiations in December and make the transfer official on January 1. That way, you could have your new signings available for the FA Cup and, crucially three of the four Premier League games in January (given that the first is on New Years' Day, it would be probably be tough to get the paperwork done in time).

And yet it rarely works out that way. Evidently, the hope of getting a better deal as the close of the window approaches outweighs the benefits of those nine Premier League points at stake.

No, it's not rational. But it's the way the transfer market operates.

JERMAIN Defoe is one of those strikers who seems to have a natural fan club among supporters and the punditocracy. It's partly down to the fact that he's a likeable guy and is thought to be some kind of dead-eye finisher. And so, when Sunderland effectively swapped Jozy Altidore, he of the horrendous goal-scoring clip (one in 2094 minutes over the past 18 months) it seemed like a no-brainer.

It is, but only to a point. And it rather underscores how, when judging a transfer, you need to have all the facts at your disposal.

True, Altidore's strike rate was appalling. But, at Sunderland, it seems to be a club-wide issue. Steven Fletcher, the team's top goalscorer, has four in 17 appearances this season, Connor Wickham, two in 21. Not quite as bad as Altidore, but not much better either.

So enter Defoe. On paper, a consummate finisher like the former England international is just what Gus Poyet needs. But then, after a bright start - three in his first two games - he didn't exactly light up Major League Soccer either: since March, he notched four goals from open play in 16 MLS games.

Altidore had two-and-a-half years left on a deal that paid him some

£32,000 a week. Defoe, who is 7 years older, has three-and-half

seasons left at a wage of some £80,000 a week. When you look at it that way, Defoe could be more expensive than he appears. Particularly if things should go horribly wrong and Sunderland slide down to the Championship.

IT may seem unbelievable to younger readers, but there was a time when almost every Premier League footballer wore standard-issue black boots. If they were any other colour, the player was seen as some kind of maverick. And if he insisted on wearing boots that were white or gold or red, well then, "he had better deliver".

You sort of feel the same way looking at Louis Van Gaal. Yes, the man is a genius and, like most geniuses, he's unconventional. His continuous changes in formation and personnel are the managerial equivalent of white boots.

Except Van Gaal goes further. He plays Angel Di Maria as a forward, he drops Radamel Falcao, he gets Phil Jones, a centreback, to take corner kicks. That's not just white boots, that's an alice-band, no shin-pads and tights-in-October caliber idiosyncracy.

None of this would matter - indeed, it would be a positive - if it was followed by results. Manchester United are fourth in the Premier League, but have only three more points than they did at the same stage last season. They had that run of six straight league wins, but, since then, have won just three of seven - and one of those was against, ahem, Yeovil.

On Friday night, in the FA Cup, they were held nil-nil by Cambridge United, a League 2 side some 75 places beneath them in the football pyramid. Stuff happens, of course. Sometimes the minnows can park the bus and disrupt the big boys. When that occurs standard operating procedures is for managers, at least in public, to praise the opposition and to read the team the riot act behind closed doors.

Van Gaal's response?

"Every aspect of the match was against us," he said. "We had to come here, the pitch isn't so good, which can influence our style. The opponents always give a lot more than they normally give and defending is easier than attacking. And you have the referee... it's always the same. You can give your own opinion the referee, I can't give mine."

Blaming the pitch, the match official, the defensive tactics of a club whose annual budget is probably equal to what United spend on landscape the grounds at Carrington?

Really?

That too is the equivalent of wearing multi-coloured boots.