give me Suarez, Fellaini and Fabregas and I’ll be content.” In the same way I used to say, “I want a Ferrari 360, but I want to retro-fit the bonnet with pop-up flame throwers and a roof-mounted water cannon to cut through crowds. I’ve always been practical like that.” This summer you can’t tell me it’s not gone outlandish. And there’s only one person to blame. OK then, Ivan what was the deal? When it comes to arrivals we’ve been getting by on sausages just fine lately – high-quality Toulouse sausages

Footballers are a lot like super cars during the transfer window. It’s probably because we’re all star-struck and capricious in a way that harks back to our teenage years when we stuck posters up on our walls. For me it was footballers and fast cars.

We indulge in fantasies that would spill over into crass, Russian oligarch-style acquisitive splurges if someone were dumb enough to hand us the credit card. It’s safe to go nuts when it’s all make-believe. I find myself saying, “I’m not greedy, but give me Suarez, Fellaini and Fabregas and I’ll be content.”

In the same way I used to say, “I want a Ferrari 360, but I want to retro-fit the bonnet with pop-up flame throwers and a roof-mounted water cannon to cut through crowds. I’ve always been practical like that.”

This summer you can’t tell me it’s not gone outlandish. And there’s only one person to blame. OK then, Ivan what was the deal? When it comes to arrivals we’ve been getting by on sausages just fine lately – high-quality Toulouse sausages I must add. We could be formidable if we keep everyone together, and just add some meaty, herby sausages.

But Ivan had to go and bring up caviar.

I mean I’ve never even tried caviar, but now I want some because it sounds high-class. But it’s sturgeon eggs, you say? I don’t even like it when I open a prawn and all that brown stuff oozes out. Those are eggs too. But I still want caviar.

As I think I’m showing here, it’s not hard to see how the summer messes with your head, especially as this one has started to drag like three solid months of watching back-to-back replays of Stoke vs Reading. So I what I thought I’d do is write out a scenario as a kind of therapy to ease my troubled mind:

Right, I’m in a luxury car showroom and a slick salesman has been talking me through the specs of a Hi-Guaín 20.

Salesman (well-rehearsed patter): Yeah, this is a good model, reliable too. You’ll get 20 Gps out of this baby no problem…but (faux-anguished sigh) there’s something that’s been bothering me. You’ve been telling everyone you’re a real high roller now. And I hate to think of a high roller riding round in something so mundane.

Me: But you said it would give me 20 Gps. I haven’t had anything like that since my Percy Van.

Salesman: Yeah, I did. But now you’re a big player, I think you deserve something more…fun.

Me (giddy from the flattery): OK, what do you have in mind?

Salesman (looks around furtively to make sure we’re alone): I want to show you something. Follow me.

In a dusky backroom there’s a curious assortment of expensive-looking accessories and contraband – those leather seats that they put in football dugouts, outsize exhausts that look like shiny stovepipes, and long canisters of nitrous oxide.

But at the centre of room, under a beam of light that enters via a grated window and cuts through the airborne dust, the menacing outline of a super car ripples beneath a satin cover.

Salesman (whisking the cover off): I give you the Suárez Cannonball. This baby is faster, turns better, sticks to the tarmac with high-end jawgrip technology. 25 Gps no problem. And it can overtake like nobody’s business. This will set you back a lot more, but it’s worth it.

Me (getting comfortable behind the wheel): This will show them. Everyone will know I’ve arrived when I roll up in this beast. I’ll show everybody, especially all the girls who turned me down when I was 16.

Salesman: There’s just one problem. (Opens the bonnet and points to a nest of ominous-looking tubes that resemble Bane’s torso before the Batman reboots). Something went wrong on the assembly line in Uruguay. This Race unit got installed. It’s faulty, but too risky to remove – the car won’t run without it.

Me: So what can I do?

Salesman: Not a damn thing. This stuff is banned. If the cops see it, they’ll make you take the car off the road for a few weeks. It’s worse than that. It also makes the Cannonball chug out poisonous gases. Every mile you drive a kid somewhere will develop smoker’s cough and start talking like John Hurt.

(It’s clear the salesman has started grappling with his conscience, and shrugs)

Some people can live with that – some people can’t.

Me: I need to think about it.

Salesman: You need to be quick, the Hi-Guaín 20’s just been sold.

Me: What? Already?

Salesman: Yeah, and this is the last super car we’ve got. There’s no time to lose on this one.

Me (hastily): Quick, is there anything else I need to know about the Cannibal?

Salesman (Correcting me): Cannonball…well, it’s a bit of a timebomb. Only I’ve got no idea when it’s going to go off. These tubes mess with the engine. It could blow up on you when you drive it out of here. On the other hand you could own it for years and it’ll never give you any problems. On top of that, the former owner’s scouse. He’s a bit of a nutter. He never wanted to part with it in the first place and if he sees it on the street…well, it will be on bricks faster than you can say “Champions League next year”.

One part of me is utterly turned off, but another, less rational part, is still seduced. And so begins an internal dialogue, a bit like a child making trade-offs, pleading with his parents for a dog.

Teenage Me: Please, please, please! I know how to look after cars properly. I’ll be extra-careful and service it every month.

Grown-up me (unconvinced): But it could blow up, dipshit. I have to spend 50 big ones on this thing, and I could lose it all, just like that. You never think, do you?

Me (to salesman): Give me a little while to mull it over.

Salesman (now over his own moral quandary): It could be too late by then. There’s a bloke from Madrid who’s already put in an offer. I said you need to move quick-

Me (cutting in anxiously, and about to cry): I just need some time to myself, OK?

I’m sobbing audibly once I reach the pavement in front of the dealership. And I try to console myself. “I’ve got some neat vehicles already. German trucks, British yachts, elegant Spanish sports cars…”

But that nagging teenage voice pipes up “You don’t have a super car though.”

I don’t have a super car. And the truth is, as flashy and vulgar as it might be, I really need a super car. Even if it’s the Suárez Cannibal- I mean, Cannonball.

Follow Alex on Twitter at @JohnAlexon