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The exploits of Leicester and Tottenham last season will have been a great source of inspiration for all other Premier League clubs. The promised land of the Champions League was starting to feel like a four or five horse race every season, with the biggest and richest battling it out at the top and leaving the rest to fight amongst themselves. But last season proved that money can only get you so far and you need to build a motivated, hardworking team, full of drive and passion.

In an attempt to secure the services of a 'marquee' player West Ham United are going to have to push the boat out, and the proposed move to sign James Rodriguez from Real Madrid is certainly a statement of intent, if indeed it transpires to be as real as it currently seems. Splashing out around £65 Million is a massive investment as well as being a humungous gamble, especially for a club like West Ham who have only recently managed to claw themselves out of a mountain of debt inherited by the two Davids, Sullivan & Gold.

Midnight on July 16th Central Chinese time marked the end of the Chinese Football federation's transfer window, and as such removes one major cash endowed player from the lunacy that is going on in the European transfer window! Quite how much the emerging Chinese super league is effecting the fees being commanded by players and their agents is difficult to quantise, but there has undoubtedley been a a seismic shift when it comes to football's economic power houses.