It is the final morning of the January transfer window and among all the breathless, overwrought boasting about how much English clubs are spending on new players, the elephant has grown too big for the room.
While the focus is trained on whether Arsenal can convince Brighton to sell Moises Caicedo or if Chelsea will cough up the asking price for Benfica’s Enzo Fernandez, across Europe they are looking on with increasing anguish.
Because this window has offered the most conclusive evidence yet that the Premier League is operating on an entirely different financial plane. It is already a de facto Super League.
