Nobody really mentions football’s financial bubble anymore, and the apocalyptic possibility of it bursting, and this surprises given how much it used to preoccupy the realists.

As the game’s spending escalated in recent years to ever-more ludicrous heights, articles would appear with increasing regularly, each detailing the worst case scenario that potentially lay in store, and this was especially pertinent around this time of year, just post the summer transfer window.

Only this time out, there has been very little hand-wringing, or at least it requires a comprehensive googling to find it.

There has been a scant number of two-thousand word think-pieces that amount to metaphorical placards declaring that the end is nigh. There have been hardly any experts insisting that if the Premier League carries on over-extending there is a very real danger of a big bang.

All told, the radio silence has been a little odd.

Odd and genuinely disconcerting too, because really there are only two explanations for the complicit acceptance, the first of them being hardly plausible at all, that some of the sharpest, brightest minds around have arrived at a different conclusion to what they previously thought to be true.

On further reflection they now believe that the exorbitantly rewarding TV deals, and the colossal revenues brought in from various profitable streams are sufficient to sustain wild spending and wage-bills that make your eyes water.

More conceivable than this, however, it is because those who repeatedly sought to warn football of the inherent jeopardy in throwing countless fortunes at a wall and hoping some of it stuck, simply got tired of not being listened to.

They have given up and chosen to walk away, to view the inevitable implosion from a safe distance. In that respect, what we’re living through now is the calm before an approaching storm.

This summer, according to Deloitte, Premier League clubs spent a combined total of £2.36 billion on transfer fees, surpassing last year’s figure by £368m. 

It is a stupendous figure, one that is hard to make sense of, and that’s the case even when we acknowledge the astonishing numbers coming the other way, from domestic and international broadcasting deals that run until 2025 and add up to £4.96 billion and £5.04 billion respectively.

Factor in also the not inconsiderable caveat of net spend - a bigger consideration than ever this summer due to the greater number of internal transfers that have taken place and the fortunes pouring in from Saudi Arabia, for players past their prime and on huge wages, purchased for over market value - and this summer’s outlay is perhaps not such a harbinger of doom after all.

It’s all going to be okay, right?  

Perhaps, but take Chelsea, and their jaw-dropping spending since Todd Boehly took the reins, an expenditure that exceeds £1 billion across three transfer windows. 

With each player tied down to atypically long contracts, what is essentially occurring at Stamford Bridge is a high-risk, unprecedented experiment that could have a profoundly devastating impact on a constant fixture among the favourites in the football odds. A five-time Premier League winner, no less.

Take Manchester United, still shackled to the hated Glazers, whose debts this week were revealed to have broken the £1 billion mark.

Here is a revenue-making monster and global behemoth who on transfer deadline day were reduced to scrabbling about, making loan deals for a long-standing target in Sofyan Amrabat and Tottenham’s third-choice full-back. 

Hamstrung by FFP and deep in hock, at what point will it be suggested that the Glazers must go so that the club can survive, never mind thrive? 

Then there’s Bournemouth, little but ambitious Bournemouth.

Benefiting from new ownership and determined to finance a new direction under incoming boss Andoni Iraola, the Cherries found themselves this summer the victims of an unavoidable trickle-down effect as the top-end of the market unmoored itself from reality once again.  

A perfectly ordinary rebuild therefore, bringing in live betting disruptors Hamed Traore and Alex Scott, along with sensible recruits such as Max Aarons, cost the South Coast club £109.9m. That’s very nearly a full third of what La Liga spent in its entirety. 

The huge disparity between what the Premier League brings in compared to the rest of Europe mostly explains for that, this summer seeing the English top-flight investing within their means more than the next three biggest spending leagues on the continent combined. 

Yet simply put, if the vast fortunes pouring in takes care of expenditure - which in itself is a fallacy, as the TV deals are a set amount, whereas club spending continues to rise out of control on an annual basis - and revenue takes care of the wage-bills - which again, it actually doesn’t, for some clubs equating to well over 100% of its turnover - then even these two delusions don’t take into account rapacious owners making awful decisions. 

And it only takes one giant to fall for the rest to suffer terribly. For evidence of that, we only need look at Bournemouth’s worrying net spend in 2023, a direct result of Chelsea and its ilk inflating the market. 

It is all too easy, in short, for the house of cards to fall. 

Those who have beaten this drum for a good while now have gone awfully quiet of late. As stated, nobody really mentions football’s bubble anymore, nor the risk of it bursting.

That eerie silence should worry us immensely.

*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*

Singling a club out just a few games into a season and deeming them to be in the first flushes of a crisis is an inaccurate science.

Last year it was Chelsea who the vultures circled over, despite the Blues going into September’s international break in fifth, a position that hardly screamed disaster.

Yet on that occasion the journalists with the especially sharpened pens were proven right, as Thomas Tuchel was sacked and all the problems highlighted in print and on programmes such as Monday Night Football only exasperated thereafter. 

Twelve months prior to that however, the doom-mongers got it hopelessly wrong with Arsenal enduring a pile-on after losing their opening three matches.

Until a very late collapse, the Gunners were short-priced in the Champions League betting for almost all of 2021/22, a campaign that heralded a renaissance under Mikel Arteta.

And this time out? By rights it should be Chelsea again, as they flail about in search of an identity, or perhaps Newcastle, who have won only one of their first four.

A club with momentous intentions, it already feels like the best the Magpies can hope for is to feature in the Europa League odds next term. 

Chelsea though have been spared, largely because the media don’t like to repeat themselves. As for Eddie Howe’s men, maybe expectations of them are not so heightened at this early juncture of their journey. 

Which leaves us with a classic of the genre, that it is Manchester United currently in peril and even if you’ve heard this story before a thousand times over, it always sells.

If the narrative makes sense though, with the Reds languishing in 11th and seriously disappointing to date, what of the substance? Are Erik Ten Hag’s side really in trouble, or is this simply an initial blip, like Arsenal’s was in 2021?

As pertinently, are we witnessing a time honoured trick of the press, that of building up a manager and his impact on arrival, only to knock him back down at the first sign of struggle?

Certainly the performances to this point have been flat and uninspiring, that cannot be disputed.

An opening-day win over Wolves felt like a smash-and-grab, as United somehow negotiated a remarkable 23 shots on their goal, while a second home victory at Nottingham Forest’s expense required the kind of comeback that used to paper over the cracks during Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s reign. 

Elsewhere, two moribund losses in North London extends Ten Hag’s terrible away record against the top six, and at the heart of these defeats was a malfunctioning midfield, labouring and out of sorts. 

With Martinez and Varane injured, United finished at the Emirates with Jonny Evans and Harry Maguire at the back and absolutely no good can come from that, but most disconcerting of all has been the lack of form shown by their attacking roster. 

Garnacho has been all-but-anonymous. Antony continues to make his enormous fee look like an ill-considered over-spend. 

Lastly, it wouldn’t be a crisis of any meaning without a player breaking ranks and distancing themselves from it so step forward Jadon Sancho whose social media posts claiming he has been scapegoated served only to reflect badly on him while burdening the club with further complications.

It is all frankly somewhat of a mess and is hardly the start United supporters envisioned after an encouraging first twelve months of what was painted as a new era.

Is it a full-blown crisis though? What transpires after the break will tell us everything.

*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*

It hasn't been an easy summer for Barcelona. There were many problems with Financial Fair Play, an obstacle that has often blocked the club due to an economic situation that is anything but stable.

Each new signing must be weighed with a calculator, with maximum attention to the budget and no excesses because the situation with La Liga continues to be tense. Summer 2023 for Barça began with the disappointment of Leo Messi's non-return: both parties tried in every way to find a solution but it was not possible to proceed.

But in the end Barça's summer was very good: new high-level signings for very limited costs in terms of transfers, however excluding salaries and commissions which remain high.

This is the only possibility for Barcelona with the current financial situation, to invest more in long-term salaries than in transfer costs because in that case it is very difficult to complete top signings.

Barça started their summer with Inigo Martinez on free transfer from Athletic Bilbao, a deal prepared since February which will allow Xavi Hernandez to have one more experienced center back.

Oriol Romeu cost around €4m, despite Barça having tried to enter the race to sign Marcelo Brozovic it was almost impossible to match Al Nassr bid and the negotiation collapsed.

Romeu has had an excellent impact, the clause in his contract has helped Barcelona and even these types of solutions are smart and key to help the club not to spend big transfer fees.

This was also the case for Ilkay Gundogan who chose Barcelona despite bids from Saudi and Manchester City as they wanted to keep him, a top-level free transfer.

That is a crucial part of the strategy: having players on their side, pushing their clubs to leave as they only want Barça.

After a month and a half of stand-by but with the sale of Ousmane Dembélé to Paris Saint-Germain in the middle which greatly helped the club's financial situation, Barça's masterpiece was the end of the transfer market.

With the departures of Abde, Eric Garcia, Clement Lenglet and Ansu Fati the club managed to free up an important part of wages in order to receive the green light from La Liga to sign their two top targets since June: Joao Felix and Joao Cancelo.

Due to the restrictions on Financial Fair Play, Barcelona were unable to insert an option to buy clause in these two deals otherwise they would be counted as two permanent signings by UEFA.

And then Barcelona approved two straight loan deals: Joao Cancelo was Xavi's first choice as new right back since January, Cancelo never negotiated with other clubs because he only wanted Barça and the deal was completed with Manchester City who no longer wanted Cancelo as part of the squad.

Joao Felix, on the other hand, had even been clear in public since July 18: "I want Barcelona, it's my dream", he told me in an exclusive interview that Barça then used... as an announcement of the deal.

No other possibility has ever been taken into consideration, only Barcelona... on loan from Atlético where by now Joao 100% could no longer stay. Two masterpieces for the new Barça in a slow and difficult market, but ultimately excellent.