IT`S THAT DAY AGAIN..

Yes, another transfer deadline day, when the airwaves are full of gossip, speculation and the occasional glimmer of truth.   Sky are probably at it non-stop with reporters scattered around the country, lurking outside training grounds in the hope of glimpsing unlikely arrivals and departures.

Now it might be `interesting` for footy fans and I confess to a smidgen of satisfaction that the Saints have managed to secure the services of Billy Sharp from Doncaster Rovers.   And yet the whole business is more reminiscent of a livestock auction, with players being traded seemingly at the whim of their clubs and, more probably, their agents.   I`m not going to feel too sorry for the way in which players in the higher reaches of the game are moved around - at least they have the comfortable cushion of the ridiculous amounts of money they`ll be getting.

But have a look further down the football pyramid, where players are traded, some times against their wishes, in order to keep a club afloat and where the sums of money involved  -even in the Alice-in-Wonderland world of professional football - can best be described as modest.   And if they have families then the upheaval at almost no notice can be upsetting, disturbing, even traumatic.

Surely there has to be a better way but I suspect it will only come with the introduction of a more sensible and sensitive transfer system, the imposition of radical curbs on the activities of agents and more stringent limits placed on the expenditure by the clubs themselves.      Maybe then we will no longer have the unsavoury spectacle of transfer deadline day`s livestock auction.

(Hang on - there`s another pig flying over my roof.)