Transfer Talk: Chelsea brace for Hazard exit, could turn to Coutinho

The transfer window for Europe's biggest clubs is closed, but click here for all the deals and keep track of who has joined the big boys. And Transfer Talk will continue to scour the world's media and set correspondents loose to see what's on the agenda for the summer.

TOP STORY: Chelsea brace for Hazard exit

Eden Hazard's on-off departure from West London could be about to reach its apparently inevitable conclusion. The Telegraph reports that the Belgian is ready to tell Chelsea that his future lies with Real Madrid and not at Stamford Bridge.

Hazard revealed that he has decided on his future in an interview with French radio station RMC, as part of a documentary on his career, which is due to be aired Wednesday. The interview was carried out two months ago but appears to suggest that Hazard already had his heart set on a move to the Bernabeu -- a long-held desire he has made no attempt to conceal as his contract runs down at Stamford Bridge.

His comments won't have created too much surprise at his current club. Last week, Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri told the media that although he hoped the Belgian star would stay, he would have to leave if his mind was made up.

He won't be cheap, though. Despite only having a year to go on his Chelsea contract, the club still values him at more than £100 million -- a figure that Madrid could hope to lower by making Mateo Kovacic's loan in West London permanent as a sweetener.

Eden Hazard reportedly will tell Chelsea he wants to join Real Madrid this summer. Getty

What would life after Hazard look like for the Blues? Well, Christian Pulisic will arrive in the summer, and Hazard's departure could open up more opportunities for Callum Hudson-Odoi, which could force the 18-year-old into rethinking his desire to join Bayern Munich.

But despite the promise of Pulisic and Hudson-Odoi, the Telegraph reports that Chelsea would look for a big-name replacement for their No. 10. One name they could turn to? Philippe Coutinho, who could return to the Premier League just 18 months after making a dream move to Barcelona from Liverpool.

LIVE BLOG

09.00 GMT: James Rodriguez has been linked with a move to Juventus this week, with reports claiming Cristiano Ronaldo has called him personally to persuade his former Real Madrid teammate to join him in Serie A.

The Colombia international is in the second year of a two-season loan move to Bayern Munich, but his father has talked up the idea of a transfer to Serie A in the German media.

According to Sport Bild, Wilson Rodriguez said: "He has many offers. [James and Cristiano] are very good friends. The way I perceive Italian football right now, [Juventus] would be a good decision."

08.05 GMT: Real Madrid are still hopeful of bringing Marcus Rashford to the Bernabeu despite him being in talks over a new Manchester United contract, according to The Sun.

Sources have told ESPN FC that United are discussing a new five-year deal with Rashford, following the England striker's rejuvenated form under caretaker manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.

The 21-year-old was linked with a move out of Old Trafford earlier this season when things were not so rosy under previous boss Jose Mourinho, with European champions Madrid credited with interest.

With eight goals in his last 13 games and in the form of his life, Real will no doubt be following the progress of Rashford's contract talks.

PAPER TALK (by Richard Edwards): Spurs plan summer raid for Norwich starlet

They might not have spent a bean in the past two transfer windows, but Tottenham seem increasingly hungry to add to their squad.

The Mirror claims that the title chasers are closing in on Norwich right-back Max Aarons, who has already turned heads at Arsenal and Chelsea, too. Although the Canaries are flying in the race for promotion to the Premier League, the Mirror reports that Spurs are keen on sealing his signature before the summer window opens.

Norwich have slapped a £15m price tag on the player, but that figure is unlikely to put off the vultures circling over Carrow Road.

Globe-trotting Morrison headed for Sweden?

It's snow joke. Sweden could be the next stop for the globe-trotting Ravel Morrison. The former Manchester United star is training with Ostersunds.

ESPN+ is America's home for a host of professional soccer leagues from around the world, highlighted by Italy's Serie A, Major League Soccer, UEFA Nations League and English FA Cup. | ESPN+ schedule

ESPN FC's experts ranked the best men's players and managers in world football. Check out the list.

Fear, paranoia, difficult behaviour and constant battling with club officials and players led to the inevitable, writes Rob Dawson.

When Boca Juniors and River Plate were set to meet in Argentina's most important match, Buenos Aires lost its mind, writes Wright Thompson.

No contract has been signed, but a statement from director of football David Webb on the club's website suggests that Morrison could make the Allsvenskan the latest stop in a career that has promised much but delivered little to date.

Morrison has made just four appearances at Lazio since moving to the Serie A giants in 2015 and has drifted in every sense since departing Manchester United in 2012. The 26-year-old has spent time at West Ham as well as loan spells with Birmingham, QPR and Cardiff City. He spent last season in Mexico with Atlas -- an aptly named side for a footballer still desperately trying to find himself.

Now the Swedish club will hope that the magic in his boots can be rekindled. And the cold of a Swedish winter can wait. Morrison has joined his new potential teammates at a training camp in Marbella.

Tap-ins

- Chelsea midfielder Tiemoue Bakayoko wants his temporary stay at AC Milan to become a permanent one, despite having three years left on his deal at Stamford Bridge. "Who wouldn't like to stay at a club like Milan for a long time?" Sky Sports reports he's quoted as saying by French newspaper Nice-Matin.

- Spurs are keeping a close eye on Leeds starlet Jack Clarke. That's according to the Mirror, with the paper writing that Mauricio Pochettino won't be put off by Leeds' insistence that the 18-year-old isn't for sale.

- Italy's Tuttomercatoweb claims that Chelsea had a £44m bid for Italian midfielder Nicolo Barella accepted in January before the proposed deal collapsed. The player eventually decided to remain with Cagliari.

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English soccer clubs slow spending on players in relatively quiet transfer window

Michael Regan/Getty Images

Riyad Mahrez of Manchester City in action during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Huddersfield Town at Etihad Stadium on August 19, 2018 in Manchester, United Kingdom.

European soccer's mid-season player transfer window has come to end with a lack of deals producing the lowest spending levels for England's Premier League clubs since 2012.

Premier League clubs' player transfer expenditure fell to £180 million ($235.7 million) in January. It is the first time since 2011/12 that there has been a year-on-year decrease in transfer expenditure from England's top 20 clubs during the month, with total spending down by £250 million compared to the same period last year.

However, when 2018's pre-season deals are factored in, net spend for the whole 2018/19 season hit record levels of an estimated £1.4 billion. That figure becomes the second-highest season of spending ever, following record spend of £1.9 billion in 2017/18. Net transfer spend (player purchases less player sales) was also a record, estimated at £905 million in 2018/19.

More than half of the teams in the league opted not to spend any money in January and instead stick with the squads they have for the rest of this season. That's despite the next three- year cycle of global broadcast rights starting from August 2019 showing a slight increase on the current deal.

"As we approach a decisive phase of the season, Premier League clubs' January transfer spending has been relatively muted in comparison to what we have seen in previous years." said Tim Bridge, Director at Deloitte's Sports Business Group, after analysing January spending.

Newcastle United was perhaps surprisingly the biggest spenders on deadline day, paying £20 million to Major League Soccer (MLS) side Atlanta for its Paraguayan striker Miguel Almiron. The North-East club is part of Sports Direct owner Mike Ashley's empire and has been subject of a long running takeover. However, this signing marks the club breaking its transfer record for the first time in over a decade, when it brought in former England striker Michael Owen in from Real Madrid.

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While Jim Curtin watched soccer’s transfer deadline frenzy, the Union had no news on more signings

The carnival of European soccer's winter transfer deadline day came and went Thursday without the Union making any news. But that doesn't mean they weren't significantly affected.

Add those moves to other big deals in recent months — David Villa left New York City FC, Tyler Adams was sold by the New York Red Bulls, and Zack Steffen will leave the Columbus Crew in July — and there's a notable impact. Not only is the league losing big names, but the Union's rivals are losing serious firepower.

That gives the Union an opening to make a move up the standings as Ernst Tanner builds the roster in his first offseason as sporting director. The Union host Toronto on opening day and visit Atlanta in Week 3. Atlanta is also adjusting to a new manager in Frank de Boer, and a new star in $14 million playmaker Gonzalo "Pity" Martínez.

Union manager Jim Curtin was as captivated as everyone else around MLS by the frenzy of news and rumors. But while it's no secret that the Union are shopping for a left back and a central midfielder, Curtin didn't have much fodder for the rumor mill.

"You guys have heard us talk about some targets and needs that we have," he said. "That's something we're working towards. … There's definitely progress. I would say we'd call it forward momentum, for sure, on a couple of things. … Hopefully, we can add a piece or two here down the stretch."

It's important to note that MLS has a different transfer window from European leagues, because it plays through the summer. MLS' window opens on Feb. 13. Teams can negotiate deals before then, but players can't officially sign until that date.

As for the Union's current players, they beat the New York Red Bulls, 3-2, on Wednesday in a scrimmage in Clearwater, Fla., with liberal substitutions. Cory Burke, Fafa Picault, and Anthony Fontana scored.

More important, the team set up in a 4-4-2 diamond formation after years of adherence to a 4-3-3. That was a significant change, and there may be more tactical changes coming.

"We're going to try a lot of things in this preseason. We will vary our formation. … We've tried different pairings in training and we'll continue to do that," Curtin said. "I gave you a lot of information and no leads on who's winning, because it's only a week-and-a-half into preseason."

The Union announced their TV schedule for the 2019 season.

For the second straight year, most games — 28 of 34 regular-season contests — will air on PHL17. Three games, including the season opener and regular-season finale, will air on 6ABC. Two will air on Live Well Network, a backup channel owned by 6ABC that is available over the air and on local cable systems. (Both of those games are late-night kickoffs out west.)

Just one game is set for national TV: Aug. 4 at D.C. United on Fox Sports 1. That was announced a few weeks ago. That could change, though, as the last three weeks of the season are subject to flex scheduling for Fox and ESPN.

There's no word on whether online streaming of games will be available locally. Last year, there was no such offering. Online streaming of Union games was available only to viewers outside the Philadelphia market through MLS' national package on ESPN+.

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Kick In The Grass: Fans Jeer Ukrainian Soccer Player's Transfer To Russia

It's one thing for a Ukrainian soccer club to lose a top defender, quite another to see him go to a top team in Russia.

So when Shakhtar Donetsk's Yaroslav Rakitskyy signed with Zenit St. Petersburg, a rival team in a rival country, fans in Ukraine went ballistic.

His Instagram account was bombarded with abusive comments, most not fit to print, with many questioning his patriotism. Others said the 29-year-old, who has 54 caps with the national team, should never don Ukraine's jersey again.

Rakitskyy, who has attracted criticism at home for his perceived lack of Ukrainian patriotism before, has stayed out of the fray. Zenit's press service declined an interview request from Current Time, and a reporter for the Russian-language network led by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA was barred from a Zenit press conference on January 30 on the grounds that he didn't represent professional sports media.

It would not be the first time the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv over Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine has spilled over into sport.

Ukrainian politicians made a futile attempt in 2018 to get countries to boycott the World Cup, which was hosted by Russia. A Sports Ministry order the same year barred government financing for athletes while they take part in competitions in Russia.

The conflict in parts of Ukraine's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk -- which has pitted Russia-backed separatists against Ukrainian government forces and resulted in at least 10,300 deaths since 2014 -- has hit Ukrainian soccer hard. Shakhtar has not played in its home region since the fighting started, and the country's top league has shrunk from 16 to just 12 teams amid tough economic times.

Rakitskyy took flak in 2014 for his supposed reluctance to sing the national anthem while playing for Ukraine.

Shakhtar's owner, Rinat Akhmetov, had some of his assets in the two regions "nationalized" by the separatists and some of the country's top soccer talent has left for greener pitches.

In transferring to Zenit, Rakitskyy will be playing for not only one of Russia's wealthiest and most successful teams, but one of Europe's. Backed by Gazprom, Zenit paid 10 million euros for the 29-year-old defender, who had spent his entire career with Shakhtar and won seven Ukrainian titles there.

Rakitskyy, largely unheralded in the West, signed a contract through the end of the 2022-23 season, Zenit announced on January 29.

"I've gone from one top team in Shakhtar to another top team in Zenit," Rakitskyy said in the statement. "I'll do everything I can and put in 100 percent on the field for the team, so that the team always wins."

Few fans in Ukraine were cheering him on.

Writing on Twitter, Sergii Filonenko claimed Rakitskyy had shown his "true colors" with the move.

Rakitskyy took flak in 2014 for his supposed reluctance to sing the national anthem while playing for Ukraine.

"I just do not sing the anthem and that's it. Of course I remember the words. Just taking that time to get tuned for the game, listening to other people singing," Rakitskyy said on national television that year.

For those who questioned his patriotism, the move to Zenit appeared to confirm their suspicions. An Internet poll by the news portal Tribuna.com showed 56 percent opposed Rakitskyy ever donning the national jersey again. Nearly 10,000 took part in the informal survey.

Oleksandr Horshkov, who played for Ukraine and several seasons for Zenit, predicted Rakitskyy could become a "pariah" if he continues to be called on to play for the national team.​

Yaroslav Rakitskyy (in yellow) in action against Northern Ireland at Stade de Lyon in Lyon in 2016.

"I think it is a very possible scenario that he would become a pariah on the team, although I would not like it. Sports should be out of politics, but nowadays everything is possible," Horshkov told Sports24.

Horshkov added that Zenit's reasons for pursuing Rakitskyy appear to be purely for sporting reasons.

"There were problems in the Zenit defense, especially on the left. Management decided to buy a quality center back," he said.

Russian sports daily Sports Express compiled a list of well-wishes addressed to Rakitskyy under a headline: "Fans -- Rakitskyy: 'Don't Listen To Eight-Year-Olds. You're A Legend!'"

Twitter user Milanista struggled to contain his enthusiasm, saying Rakitskyy "going to Zenit is amazing. Will bring some much needed stability to the backline."

And he won't be the only big-name Ukrainian at the club. Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, who captained Ukraine in the past and even played a few seasons for German giants Bayern Munich, is an assistant coach at Zenit.

For fans of Shakhtar, it's just the latest in a long drip of bad news. They must cheer from afar, as their team's "home" matches are played mostly in Kharkiv, but also in Kyiv and even for a time in Lviv, as well.

Their home stadium, Donbas Arena, a state-of-the-art facility built at a cost of $425 million that also hosted games during the 2012 European soccer championships, now sits empty, damaged from shelling.

Shakhtar sits atop the Ukrainian Premier League with a seven-point lead over Dynamo Kyiv. But the league is not what it used to be, with once-top squads Dnipro and Metalist Kharkiv having been relegated to amateur status.

Dnipro's fall, in particular, most cruelly captures the struggles of soccer today in Ukraine. In 2015, the club was being toa sted after falling just short to Spanish side Sevilla 3-2 in the Europa League final, the continent's second-biggest competition behind the Champions League.

Off the field, all was not well at the club. Dnipro owner and oligarch Ihor Kolomoyskiy was struggling to pay the bills, including salaries to coaches and players.

Two years after that Europa League final, Dnipro was relegated in 2017 to Ukraine's third tier, the Ukrainian Second Division, as Kolomoyskiy's patience and financing dried up. In 2018, the club was relegated again, to the amateur league.

With Dnipro's fortunes waning, one of its top players, Yevhen Seleznyov, left the club in 2016. His destination? Russia. The striker, a regular on the Ukrainian national team, signed with Russian Premier League side Kuban Krasnodar amid jeers from fans in Ukraine.

"I never mixed sport and politics. This is just the situation. I hope people will understand," Seleznyov told the Tribuna.com website at the time. "Maybe someone called me a traitor, I don't know. But I did not betray anyone."

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Transfer window winners and losers: Newcastle, Chelsea, Milan impress; Tottenham and PSG don't

The transfer window in Europe is closed, but which clubs came out on top, and which suffered? We break down the winners and losers.

WINNERS

NEWCASTLE UNITED

Rafa Benitez must have woken up pinching himself this morning. Squeezing funds out of Mike Ashley tends to require Herculean effort, but Newcastle now have a new club-record signing, and there is every chance that, at around £20 million, Miguel Almiron will provide the kind of value their owner seeks.

Newcastle have been short of playmaking flair for so long, and Almiron, who bewitched Major League Soccer fans in his two years with Atlanta United, should add that in spades. His arrival is significant, as it suggests that Newcastle can finally land the serious targets that can keep them away from the relegation battle, and they might just persuade Benitez to open negotiations for a new contract too.

Antonio Barreca, a left-back who has arrived on loan from Monaco, was their only other winter recruit, though he was second choice behind Jordan Lukaku, for whom a move fell through.

CHELSEA

Given the state of Chelsea's Premier League campaign, it seems counterintuitive to say they have had a good January. But transfer windows are about the long term as much as quick fixes, and on that count, the Stamford Bridge club scored well.

Securing Christian Pulisic's signature from Borussia Dortmund for next season for €64 million was a coup, and it might have been equally significant that they managed to fend off Bayern Munich's €40 million pursuit of Callum Hudson-Odoi. That one might be back on the table next summer, but they now have at least four months to convince the player of their commitment to his future.

Gonzalo Higuain, signed on a relatively risk-free loan from Juventus, might not have hit the ground running, but it is hard to see him firing blanks for long, and in terms of his finishing, he should be an upgrade on Alvaro Morata, whose loan to Atletico Madrid came as little surprise.

AC MILAN

Chelsea might feel they did good business enlisting Higuain, but his replacement at Milan, where the Argentine had been on loan, has wasted little time proving his worth. Krzystof Piatek, 23, arrived for £30.9 million from Genoa and, in only his second appearance, scored both goals in a 2-0 Coppa Italian win over Napoli. The free-scoring Poland international, who was playing in his domestic league for Cracovia only eight months ago, looks like the real deal and could help fire Milan closer to Serie A's top three.

Lucas Paqueta, an extravagantly talented 21-year-old midfielder, arrived from Flamengo for a similar fee after a deal was agreed in the autumn, and while their outlay this winter has been hefty, Milan have spent it on two players who should only get better.

RB LEIPZIG

The German club's trusty line of communication with Red Bull Salzburg came good again in the form of Amadou Haidara, an outstandingly multifaceted midfielder who looks a worthy successor to Naby Keita. "There aren't too many players of his age who have so much potential," the RB Leipzig manager Ralf Rangnick said of Haidara, a 20-year-old Mali international whose £19 million move was confirmed just before Christmas.

Further intrigue comes in the form of Tyler Adams, who arrives from New York Red Bulls and was pitched quickly into Bundesliga action at the end of January. Adams, 19, looks a tremendous prospect, and Leipzig might now have tied down their midfield for the next few years.

Also arriving is Emile Smith-Rowe, the young attacking midfielder from Arsenal, who signed on loan. Anything he can produce will be a bonus, but RB Leipzig's window has reinforced their reputation as a club intent on developing dynamic young talent.

LOSERS

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

Spurs have achieved something novel: going two consecutive transfer windows without making a first-team signing.

Mauricio Pochettino's attitude to squad building, preferring to develop from within where possible, is well known, but it is hard not to think they look undercooked as they approach the business end of the season. Harry Kane and Dele Alli are both expected to be out for at least another month, and by the time they are back, Tottenham might well have completed both legs of their Champions League round of 16 tie with Borussia Dortmund as well as Premier League assignments against rivals Arsenal and Chelsea.

It is not a time to slip up, and while the veteran stand-in striker Fernando Llorente squeezed them past Watford on Wednesday, it is asking a lot for him and Son Heung-Min (now returned from the Asian Cup) to provide adequate firepower against top opponents. A canny addition or two would have been welcome this time.

PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN

It would be stretching things to call PSG's transfer window a failure, but they enter February with questions hanging over the squad.

Leandro Paredes, who had been sought by Chelsea, was a useful midfield signing from Zenit St. Petersburg -- and a pricey one, at £34.7 million -- but there was frustration in their long-running pursuit of Frenkie de Jong, who chose Barcelona, and they were unable to land Everton's Idrissa Gueye either.

They also find themselves short at the top end of the pitch. Neymar's injury, which rules him out of the Champions League meeting with Manchester United, could prove fatal to their burning ambition at European level, and no replacement has been forthcoming. D.C. United's Luciano Acosta would have been an exciting addition, albeit perhaps for the longer term, but negotiations stalled, and PSG's search for validation through the Champions League might be extended by another year.

HUDDERSFIELD TOWN

Huddersfield sit at the bottom of the Premier League, 12 points adrift of safety, and there was little appetite to throw money at the problem in West Yorkshire. Karlan Grant, an exciting striker who joined for around £2 million from League One side Charlton, has a big future ahead but feels like the kind of arrival to spark a Championship promotion campaign rather than a tilt at survival.

Jason Puncheon, now 32, is a more experienced arrival from Crystal Palace, but the Terriers appear to be planning for life in the second tier. Their headline departure was the most significant move of all: David Wagner, their much-loved manager, departed. His replacement, Jan Siewart, will have to negotiate a steep learning curve over the remainder of the season.

VILLARREAL

Once genuine Champions League contenders and a creditable fifth in La Liga last season, Villarreal are in the relegation mire, and January provided little real evidence that they will shoot up the table. Vicente Iborra, the experienced defensive midfielder, is a solid arrival from Leicester but hardly a game-changer.

Instead they have pinned their hope on the return of manager Javi Calleja, whom they fired just 50 days previously. He replaces his own replacement, Luis Garcia, under whom an already downwardly-mobile Villarreal plummeted into the relegation zone. Perhaps it will bear fruit, but it betrays a grievous lack of planning and smacks of rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

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Miguel Almiron Completes Newcastle Transfer for Reported Club-Record Fee

Newcastle United have signed Atlanta United star Miguel Almiron on a five-and-a-half-year deal.

The Magpies announced the capture of the Paraguay international on Thursday:

The attacking midfielder said one of the key reasons he opted for the move to Newcastle was to work under manager Rafael Benitez, per the club statement:

"I'm very happy and eager to start and to meet my new team-mates. The league is very competitive, this is a historic club, and Rafa Benitez himself were the main reasons why I am here now. I think it is a great responsibility, something beautiful for me, and I will try to offer the best I can to repay the trust the club put in me."

Per BBC Sport, Almiron has joined for a club-record fee of around £20 million, surpassing the £16 million the club paid for Michael Owen's move from Real Madrid in 2005.

The 24-year-old has arrived after two successful seasons in Major League Soccer, which culminated in him playing a key role for Atlanta as they won the MLS Cup for the first time in 2018.

OptaJoe provided his impressive numbers last season:

Almiron was named in MLS' Best XI and All-Star sides in both campaigns and was also named MLS' Newcomer of the Year in 2017 following his arrival from Argentinian outfit Lanus.

Roberto Rojas of the Low Limit Futbol podcast and Atlanta United reporter Doug Roberson gave some insight as to what Newcastle fans can expect from their new signing:

His arrival should serve as a major boost for the Toon, who have spent the season once again battling against relegation.

Newcastle have scored just 21 goals from 24 Premier League matches this season, and they've only managed three in a single league game once. Only Huddersfield Town and Cardiff City have netted fewer.

The Premier League will be a step up for Almiron, but if he can find his feet quickly, he could provide the creative and goalscoring spark the Magpies need to secure survival.

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On Soccer: Has the Premier League Transfer Bubble Burst?

© Andrew Boyers/Reuters Gonzalo Higuaín's loan to Chelsea was a rare headline-making move in a quiet January transfer window in the Premier League. A special message from MSN: 

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MANCHESTER, England — At last, it seems, among all of the hundreds of millions of pounds that float around the Premier League, the penny has dropped.

The January transfer window has come and gone, barely noticed. There has been no orgy of excess, no frantic scramble to spend as much money as possible, no broken transfer-spending records, no helicopter dashes, no late-night drama.

For once — for the first time, perhaps — English soccer has been a model of restraint and of prudence. For once, it has looked not at price, but at worth. As one executive at a Premier League team told The Times of London, "People are asking crazy money for average players."

That, of course, should hardly have come as a shock. The clubs in the cash-soaked Premier League, with its lucrative broadcasting deals and its seemingly bottomless pit of wealth, had no sooner helped to create soccer's superheated transfer market than they began to suffer from it.

In England, managers and technical directors and chief executives whisper darkly of an "English tax," claiming that their counterparts on Continental Europe routinely quote them higher prices than they would a team from Germany, Italy or Spain.

In public, those working in sales or recruitment in Europe dismiss that allegation — two sporting directors told The Times in 2017 that they work "with one price in mind" for a player, regardless of origin or destination — but there can be little doubt that, at the very least, many see English teams as easy marks.

In part, that is to their credit. According to one executive at a Bundesliga team, selling to a Premier League club is a much more straightforward business than offloading a player to Italy or Spain: The money is invariably paid upfront, one lump sum deposited into your account upon completion of the deal, rather than an instalment plan contingent on a host of clauses. It is also rather more palatable to fans: Clubs in Germany, he said, have broadly welcomed English interest in their best players simply because the alternative is seeing them move, with dread predictability, to Bayern Munich.

That is not, however, the limit of its appeal. The evidence is anecdotal but nonetheless compelling: Europe's clubs see the Premier League as a cash cow, and its member clubs as rather deeper of pocket than they are of thought.

There are, for example, executives who tell stories of hanging up the phone to a Continental team and then immediately doubling the asking price when an English club calls. There are sporting directors who recall scarcely being able to conceal their glee when a Premier League team asks to buy one of their players, or the celebrations when they complete a deal for a vastly inflated price.

And there is the manager who was presented with a tall, black South American forward by his club's owner a few years ago and told that it did not matter if the deal worked out, because even if he did not score goals, "an English team will come and buy him for more than we paid anyway."

There will be plenty, then, who will see the drip-feed of small-beer deals and loans-with-an-option-to-buy that have populated this January transfer window and believe that it is just an exception, something cyclical, that come summer, the Premier League will be showering its largess on Europe once more.

It is worth noting, though, that year-on-year spending last summer was down, too: barely noticeable in the raw figures — £1.2 billion ($1.57 billion), as opposed to £1.4 billion in 2017 — but in the context of a global market that had been distorted beyond recognition by the fee Paris St.-Germain paid for Neymar, an eye-catching drop.

As unlikely as it sounds, the possibility has to be considered that the Premier League has finally managed to shake its reflex reaction to spend its way out of any problem, to break free of its shopaholism, to overcome its addiction to the short-term high of a lavish transfer.

It would be reductive to attribute that to one cause; it is the result, in all likelihood, of a confluence of factors. Few in soccer, for example, believe that the uncertainty that has infected most British industries because of Brexit has had much of an effect, but it is hard to believe the weakness of the pound against the euro has not given at least some clubs pause.

Gallery: Worst Premier League deadline day deals (FourFourTwo)

Then there is the assumption in the Premier League that English soccer's television boom might have plateaued, and that the next broadcast deal will not deliver the exponential rise in income to which the clubs have grown accustomed. That, too, may have persuaded clubs to become just a little more frugal.

If certain clubs have chosen not to spend — Liverpool and Manchester City for fear of disrupting the delicate harmony they have established, Manchester United because a permanent manager and a technical director must be appointed first — others have been unable to do so.

In the case of Tottenham, with a new stadium to consider, and Chelsea, subject to a FIFA investigation over rule breaches related to young players, those circumstances are bespoke; for others, the issue is much broader. The short-term cost-control measures established by the league's clubs effectively link increases in a team's wage bill to growth of its commercial revenue; that Arsenal, for example, has not increased the latter means it is not in a position to throw money at the former.

None of that, though, explains why everyone has been so parsimonious, so uncharacteristically cautious. Yet the trend is widespread enough to suggest that there has been a more fundamental change, that English teams no longer suspect they are being taken for a ride, but know they are, and are determined to put a stop to it.

England for many years stood as a last, defiant bulwark against the idea that recruitment should be overseen not by a club's manager, but by a technical — or sporting — director. Such an appointment, it was thought, would only undermine the authority of the man tasked with picking the team; in a country that sanctified the memories of Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson and Brian Clough, the manager's position was inviolable.

That is no longer the case. Of the elite, only Manchester United does not have a technical director, and it is in the process of finding one. Away from Old Trafford, most teams have moved to bring in an individual or a team of people to sift through data, to compile scouting reports, and to assist — to choose a euphemism — the manager with recruitment. The days of a coach being allowed to bring in players on a whim are over.

It is not a perfect system, but it is designed to prevent a club having to resort to last-minute purchases, desperate rolls of the dice. It is structured to make clubs less wasteful, more efficient. Its corollary is that it attracts managers more accustomed to working with what they have, or what they are given, rather than demanding money be spent to solve problems that have proved beyond them.

And this is its effect: a handful of unremarkable deals, players brought in to cover a particular need rather than to meet a vague desire, over the course of a month that does not warrant the comic, childlike pomp and ceremony England usually reserves for the transfer window. A dull January is not a cause for concern. It is not a sign of a lack of ambition, but the hallmark of a league that is getting that little bit smarter, that at last is thinking with its head, rather than its pocket.

Follow Rory Smith on Twitter: @RorySmith.

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