News analysis Sterling move caps weirdest transfer window in history

With one final flourish of the pen by Raheem Sterling, perhaps the weirdest English Premier League transfer window in recent history slammed shut.

- James Walton

Between the bizarre merry-go-round of home-grown transfers of the first few weeks, Chelsea's frenzied simultaneous spending spree and fire sale, contenders not doing much at all and then the sudden, almost random deals completed at the end - this will go down as a window to remember.

On paper, you can look at the numbers and say that they compare reasonably with past summer windows - especially the "pre-Saudi" ones, but behind all that were some interesting stories driving some of the seemingly scattergun behaviour, with a major focus on home-grown deals and many big names left languishing.

Let's start with the beginning of the window when a bunch of clubs conveniently all under threat of breaching the profit and sustainability rules (PSR) and needing to balance their books to avoid potential sanctions and points deductions - orchestrated a series of deals that to the casual bystander seemed like they were done at rather inflated fees.