Why does this transfer window feel so frantic and deranged? It’s way too loud and it’s not even July

Does this transfer window feel madder to anyone else? Have I just imagined it?

I know transfer windows have brought out the madness for as long as they’ve existed but for reasons understandable and not, this one feels the most febrile.

I can’t ever recall quite this level of panic and despair from fans and media alike about Getting Business Done Early. The benefits of doing so are obvious, but this need for all business to be done by July 1 feels new.

And even by transfer window standards, the speed and size of the mood swings feels particularly unhinged this summer. And this isn’t just among fans, who have always – and in many ways rightly – been prone to the madness. Pundits have also lost their minds.

Arsenal have gone from the depths of despair at missing out on Champions League football to being touted for a title challenge after a couple of signings that don’t exactly feel revolutionary. There are already people out there describing Gabriel Jesus – a very good player for sure – as the 20-goal striker they’ve been looking for. Maybe he is, but the fact is that he has never yet scored more than 14 in a Premier League season having spent five-plus of them at a team that scores a staggeringly huge number of goals.

Across north London we have Spurs who, already giddy on their pilfering of the final Champions League spot, promptly won the transfer window before May was even done by signing Ivan Perisic. Again, there came talk of a title challenge on the back of an admittedly very good and uncharacteristically early transfer foray, since backed up by the arrival of Yves Bissouma. It’s good business but City and Liverpool aren’t likely to be too worried about the footballquake in north London, surely.

Those two have themselves also done big bits early with Erling Haaland and Darwin Nunez arriving. Haaland to City is a genuinely massive thing, and a huge coup for the Premier League and its Bestest League Ever status. For all that the Premier League has been so good for so long, it still marks a relatively rare instance of a bona fide superstar moving to England at the peak of their powers. Waning superstars have moved to England. Players have become superstars in England. Rarely have they done what Haaland has done and split the difference. Nunez feels like more of a punt, but Liverpool’s record in this department is good enough that they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Then you’ve got Manchester United and Chelsea, who…