If many within the game still feel the whole idea of a set period for transfers is an unnecessary imposition, its closure for four months does offer the chance to summarise all business done since the end of last season. Financial exactitude in such matters is not easy, since in what is supposed to be an age of greater transparency clubs, ludicrously, are still not obliged to make transfer fees public. Indeed, the most sensational deal of the summer, for Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, appears to have been concluded between West Ham United and a company allegedly being investigated by the Brazilian government for money-laundering.

As the matter is shrouded in such secrecy, it will be difficult to establish how much West Ham have paid for their coup, but unless it amounts to £8m, which is highly unlikely, they will not have altered the trend of the past two summers, which is for exactly the same four clubs to have emerged as the highest net spenders - ie, outgoings on transfers minus receipts. The quartet comprises two of the accepted big four of English football and two wannabes desperate to rejoin them after briefly achieving membership of the Big (Champions) League; namely Chelsea, Liverpool, Newcastle and Everton.

Chelsea continue to insist they aim to break even within the next few years, though their transfer dealings offer no clue as to how this might be achieved. Outgoing players are still sold at huge losses, and premium fees are paid for replacements. This time they will claim that handing over only £5m plus a disenchanted player for Ashley Cole was a good result.

Paying over the odds is a syndrome of which Manchester United have long complained and it can hardly be disputed when they were forced to go to £18.6m for Michael Carrick in July.

By restricting themselves to that one major purchase, however, and collecting £11m for Ruud van Nistelrooy, they are for the second year running not among the highest spenders.

Arsenal's case is a different one, a second successive year of modest recruiting having been conditioned by financial prudence ahead of the move to the Emirates Stadium. Liverpool have yet to make the giant step away from a beloved home and in the meantime are backing the judgment of Rafa Benitez as handsomely as they once did Gerard Houllier's.

Benitez can at least claim that last summer's main purchases - Peter Crouch, Jose Reina and Momo Sissoko - have proved their worth and that Dirk Kuyt, Craig Bellamy and Jermaine Pennant ought to do the same.

Newcastle are another club where every manager seems to be given even more money to spend than the last in a display of faith that is either touching or hilarious according to point of view. Glenn Roeder will have to go some to match Graeme Souness, who went through £30m net in taking the squad from 12th to 15th in the Premiership;

but he is halfway there already after buying Damien Duff, Obafemi Martins and Antoine Sibierski and would have been much closer had last week's cheeky bid for Mark Viduka succeeded.

Everton's board may feel that 11th place was a poor reward for the £17m spent last summer, especially as the most expensive recruit, the Danish defender Per Kroldrup, had to be ditched at a loss within six months.

David Moyes has still been backed this time, to the tune of over £13m for just two players, Andy Johnson and Joleon Lescott, the club's only business immediately before the deadline being to recoup £2m from Wigan for Kevin Kilbane.

If there is a surprise among the list of spenders it is the prominent position of Charlton Athletic, frequently praised for the best husbandry in the Premiership.

Last week's acquisition of the Senegal defender Souleymane Diawara for £3.7m took the new manager Iain Dowie's spending to almost £12m in three months on nine players.

Desire to remain among the elite in time for that handout might have been expected to prompt the three newly promoted clubs into doing more shopping. Yet Reading, Watford and to a lesser extent Sheffield United have proceeded cautiously.

Meanwhile, as Sunderland launched Operation Keano to propel them straight back to the land of milk and money, the new man was linked in Thursday morning's newspapers with no fewer than 10 different players. In a serious statement of intent, he managed to sign six of them.