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The Guardian sportsblog talks today about the creeping redefinition of what it means to be a Premier League manager. As I touched on yesterday re: Keegan’s departure (or not) managers are increasingly being superceded/undermined/assisted (delete as appropriate) by directors of football and the like as more owners move away from the traditional model of appointing a manager to manage the whole operation. Curbishley was not happy with his lack of control of transfers, as Keegan had been the day before. And fair enough. Surely in any industry a manager should have significant input in employing (or sacking) his staff. Also, there is little evidence that this works in English football, it generally ends in tears. It is no coincidence that two of the most established and successful managers, Wenger and Ferguson, have so much say over the direction of their clubs. Are owners following this new model because of continental influence, or because they’ve bought a club as a plaything, a real-life Championship Manager?

Silly season is apparently in full swing in the Premier League following the passing of the transfer deadline.

After buying Robinho for a cool £32.5 million from under the noses of Chelsea, Manchester City’s new owners, the Abu Dhabi group, plan to buy up several more big names – including making a £135 million bid for Cristiano Ronaldo in the January transfer window. After the events of yesterday, anything could happen, but the chances of Ronaldo, Torres, Fábregas, Henry and Villa all heading to Eastlands seem a little unlikely. My worry is that clubs (such as Leeds) have come unstuck from big spending, and City already appear to have been caught out once with Thaksin’s shenanigans. Too many clubs fall foul of following an impossible dream. Considering the healthy attendances City have, and with a talented manager in place, it is a shame they are heading down such a risky route when they could have built up steadily over time. But perhaps Thaksin’s departure left them with no choice but to be the Abu Dhabi group’s plaything?

Meanwhile, Kevin Keegan may have left Newcastle, or at least that’s what reports (and Keegan’s no-showing training) suggested. But then Newcastle released a statement saying he had not been dismissed and they hoped stayed with the club. You’d think, however, that he was on his way. The conflict may have, at least in part, come from Keegan having to work with a director of football, Dennis Wise, who is in charge of all transfers. This was never going to be a satisfactory working arrangement for any manager, particularly one as passionate as Keegan. Without control over players coming in or out a football manager is impotent. I’m struggling to think of such an arrangement that has worked – director of football seems such a wooly term, and conspiracy theorists would state they are only brought in to get a the current manager out.

So, a strange day in football, and more developments to follow by the looks of things.

I’ve been F5-ing my day away on The Guardian minute-by-minute report of the Premier League football transfer deadline day. There may be some exciting stories to emerge by the end of the evening, which isn’t often the case with these last-day shenanigans as managers and journalists alike scramble around trying to make something of the day, as the hours evaporate, generally with little success. But today Manchester City have been in the thick of some potentially huge stories, looking to gazump Chelsea to Robinho and steal Dimitar Berbatov from under neighbours Manchester United’s noses. The sheer audacity of it, plus the huge fees that are likely to be involved makes this a newsworthy deadline day amid the panic buying and other underwhelming transfer news.

I am not a big fan of the transfer deadline/windows in their current form. They seem to encourage these bursts of transfer activity that are often all hype and little action and seem to create a false market where clubs desperately throw money around on deals that may not be that wonderful. And the inflationary aspect of the window clearly benefits the bigger clubs, widening the gap there already is between rich and poor clubs.

While in the modern media age I’m pleased we don’t have the dull Gareth Barry and Cristiano Ronaldo sagas we had to endure this Summer all year long, I could live without the false parameters for sealing transfers. But, if we are to have transfer windows I wish they didn’t infringe on the season itself. This season so far already feels like a “phoney war”, yet to fully ignite. Transfers still going on, only to be cut off a few weeks into the season, just makes this worse. We should at least see the squads settled before the season starts if there is a time-limit on when transfers can take place.

Still, at least this window might not be an absolute dissapointment in the end, and at least the endless speculation will be over too, and we can get on with the important stuff. And for all my complaining, I’m still F5-ing…