Football: Blood Red: Window of opportunity is creating a transfer farce; There's an insatiable appetite for hearsay.

Byline: CHRIS BASCOMBE

THE imminent closure of the transfer window has succeeded in turning the Premiership into a cuckoo's nest of hysteria, delusion and paranoia.

The longer the transfer window is open, the more any sense of perspective gets chucked through it.

Supporters like to indulge in a familiar lament about the days before agents and 24 hour, seven day a week footie coverage, when the first you heard about a signing was when the Press conference was called to unveil him.

Rumours would spread around the city about the player's identity, until he'd walk into the club's trophy room to gasps of approval or howls of laughter.

Nowadays, any use of the word 'transfer' is immediately followed by the addition 'saga'. The exceptions tend to be those signings who are sneaked through with barely a mention, which is usually a sign the buying club isn't that enthusiastic about the deal.

Remember the hype surrounding the capture of Carl Medjani in 2003? Thought not. The first anyone knew of him was when he turned up at Liverpool's open training day.

It was only when somebody asked "who's he?" his identity was revealed. The suspicion then, as it is now, is the club couldn't bring itself to attract attention to the purchase of yet another French youth, no matter how talented he was (or not).

With transfers that really matter, the least interesting day is usually the one when the player actually puts pen to paper, since all the drama tends to unfold in the six weeks leading to this point.

Football's grapevine is so ripe with gossip, some radio shows or columns now cunningly describe themselves as a 'rumour mill' as a means of feeding the insatiable appetite for hearsay.

That's a get-out clause Christian Ziege would have been proud of. It's effectively telling fans 'nothing you hear or read here is definitely true.' The facts are no longer needed for a story in the more misguided media outlets, never mind getting in the way of it.

Of course, the hypocrites among you will will shriek in disapproval with the seemingly grubby manner transfers are handled.

Secretly, everyone loves transfer sagas when they involve their own club opening its wallet. Sure, it can be frustrating and demoralising to see your hopes about Kaka or Shevchenko or Rory Delap wearing your favourite shirt dashed, but this is what following football is all about.

Missing out on Luis Figo may be the equivalent of a home defeat to West Brom, but re-capturing Michael Owen should feel like scoring a last minute winner at St James' Park.

Far from despair at the manner transfers drag on, the fans revel in it. That's why the phones don't stop ringing on our sports desk and everyone connected to Liverpool FC is suffering text message overload with the same question: 'Any news on MO?' If any of us claiming to know answers simply replied, or wrote in the newspaper, 'it's our policy to no longer discuss this issue until the player has actually left Real Madrid', you'd stop buying the paper and look elsewhere for your daily fix of news or gossip.

Contrary to misbelief, many of the managers love the Machiavellian politics behind a transfer too.

Yes, when it goes belly-up and they're on the wrong side of an alleged tap-up, they'll book themselves into a hotel at the peak of the moral high ground.

Bolton chairman Phil Gartside is the latest passenger on the 'everyone's bent except us bandwagon', although he set a new precedent this week by actually complaining about an 'official' approach by Liverpool.

Liverpool spoke to Bolton directly about Stelios the Greek which is a lot more than the Trotters did when they decided they'd like to sign Didi Hamann, who was still under contract at a club which wanted to keep him.

Gartside's paranoia isn't unique. One of the reasons transfers drag on so long is no-one seems to believe what anyone says anymore and too many people are involved. The days when a private chat between a chairman or chief executive thrashed out a deal ended with the invention of the brown paper bag.

When reading transfer stories, the coded messages between the lines from those involved are as important as those on the surface.

Some are better at deciphering them than others.

Take this week's latest instalment of the Michael Owen soap opera.

Owen's statement effectively told Newcastle they were his last resort. If he can't start in Real Madrid's first team (which everyone in the world knows he can't), it's Liverpool or nowhere else on a permanent deal.

When the deluded Geordies announced they'd agreed a fee with Real Madrid a hour later, they neglected to mention that was a week earlier and Owen's statement was, in fact, a polite way of rejecting it.

In the meantime, Rafa Benitez has maintained his best poker face, giving away nothing, waiting for the best moment to reveal his hand.

What now stands in the way of Owen returning to Anfield isn't the player, nor is it the Liverpool manager. It's Real Madrid's attitude to Liverpool, Owen and Benitez.

In the meantime, the fans of Liverpool and Newcastle will get newsprint on their fingers and bruise their thumb clicking the remote control and computer mouse until Owen is wearing a red shirt again.

And just when it seems to be all over when the transfer window shuts on August 31? Well then, we can all start preparing the speculation about those necessary January signings

CAPTION(S):

EMOTIONAL RETURN: Michael Owen looks set to rejoin Liverpool next week after politely rejecting Newcastle's bid to sign him