Sometimes it feels as though the football world creates rules and regulations just to spice things up. You have an offside rule, but you don't adopt technology to monitor it - just so you can have those post-match "was he on, was he off" debates. You have a fourth official on the sidelines, who seems to be there just so the managers can yell at him (and better still, hopefully get sent off), and you deprive him of the use of a video monitor to calm the mangers' fury. You have injury time, even though referees love pointing at their watches to prove that they are accurately keeping track of lost time during stoppages - just so you can have the luxury of a dramatic "injury-time" goal.

And then of course, you have the transfer window, and more importantly, transfer deadline day (hereon referred to as TDD, not to be confused for a rap star).

If all clubs are allowed to buy players throughout the season, then it's fair game to everyone. Teams who are struggling can go out and bring in players to boost their ranks, which actually favours the small clubs because for all the money the big clubs have, they can only field 11 players. A Chelski could buy ten players throughout the season, but often times a small club only needs to bring in one to make a difference.

DUNNE DEAL: Richard Dunne was the biggest transfer of an uneventful transfer deadline day.

But noooooooo.... There needs to be a TDD, just so we can all have the excitement of waiting with abated breath for the deluge of players signed haphazardly during those final hours by clubs desperate to avoid not having enough players, whether they are right or not, for the season ahead. Again, small clubs suffer, because they can't afford to sign the wrong players, whereas the big clubs always have a gazillion other players to step right in if someone decides to do a Eric Djemba-Djemba or Franny Jeffers.

But ironically, perhaps the most exciting thing about the transfer activity on this year's TDD, is the lack of transfer activity - among the Big Four of the English Premier League at least; which feels weird, considering just weeks ago Real Madrid were so gleefully spreading the money of their local banks to equally gleeful recipients all over England, Spain and Italy.

I was part of the Football Everyday panel the day after TDD, and at the video shoot Shebby Singh was telling me how boring his ESPN live transfer deadline show was. Indeed, the biggest news was Richard Dunne's done deal with Aston Villa.

So why this sudden lack of TDD drama? Why have all the big clubs suddenly gotten thrifty? It's simple - Manchester City and Real Madrid happened. The clubs have spent a combined 345 million pounds (estimated) on players this season, enough to buy entire football clubs - players, stadia, training facilities, staff and all; even if the sum is divided in half. Poor ol' Newcastle United are still on the market for 80 million.

Madrid president Florentino Perez insists their spending is part of the club's supposedly revolutionary, exemplary model of how to run a football club. Apparently shirt sales from expensive, big name signings makes a football club great, regardless of the ridicule and contempt from the rest of the footballing world. You can be sure the club won't have any sympathy from rival fans if, or more like when, Perez's Galacticos 2.0 discover that they have no ability to deal with, let's say... a long ball or set-piece.

FLORENTINO PEREZ: Does he really know what he's doing? Will he start maligning "defensive players" again?

Not that it matters to him. Even if they failed to win a single piece of silverware this season, and take note, nobody's really propped them up to "favourites" status for the La Liga OR Champions League, Perez will be gloating about how the business and marketing side of that strategy worked.

But as it turns out, some clubs, like Manchester City, and their earlier incarnation Chelsea, are eager to adopt it. Fortunately, both clubs allowed their managers to conduct the transfers, and not let some businessman/corporate high-flyer go about assembling his own fantasy team like some giddy child who's just been handed a fiver in the candy store.

Quotes like "We will not miss (Claude) Makélélé. His technique is average, he lacks the speed and skill to take the ball past opponents, and ninety percent of his distribution either goes backwards or sideways" are more than sufficient to explain how much of a knuckle-headed nit-wit Perez is; and one who will hopefully be around long enough to engineer another self-destructive period at Madrid.

Manchester City however, have gone about their business much more sensibly thanks to Mark Hughes. Apart from possibly Robinho, it seems most of the players brought in were requested by Hughes himself. It's hard to imagine City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan pushing for a deal for Craig Bellamy, Wayne Bridge, Shay Given or Joleon Lescott. Then again, it probably doesn't matter to him since it's all loose change anyway. I can picture Hughes on the phone with his boss, and the sheer joy of hearing on the receiver: "Craig who? Whatever. Just pay for him. And I've heard about this John Terry before. Would you like to buy him too?"

But whether by evil design or chance, the spending of Madrid and City have left their rivals reeling. The purchase of Lescott from Everton will most likely set the Merseysiders back a place or two on the league table, and leaving them with precious little time to buy a replacement, while Madrid has left the entire Premier League pondering over the attractiveness of England for foreign players with their tempting of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Karim Benzema and Xabi Alonso - all targets and/or players for the EPL's top sides.

Hard to imagine City's owners in the Middle East would have heard of Joleon Lescott, which probably means Mark Hughes is in proper control at the club.

More significantly, it has forced the EPL's Big Four to tighten their purse strings. Yes, even Chelsea.

Players' transfer values are so inflated now, it just doesn't make sense for any club without bottomless pits of cash to make any significant moves. United, Chelsea and Liverpool were all forced to pay the rough equivalent of Theirry Henry's transfer fee to Barcelona for Antonio Valencia, Yuri Zhirkov and Glen Johnson respectively; so imagine how much a real superstar name would cost them now.

Arsene Wenger on the other hand, could only bring in the one player he needed - a center-back, the untested Thomas Vermaelen who cost 10million pounds, compared to the 7million Manchester United paid for Nemanja Vidic (who was already highly-rated then for his heroics with the Serbian national team) three years ago. Even then, that's nothing compared to the estimated 40million pounds City forked out for their central defensive partnership of Kolo Toure and Lescott.

And when Madrid finally signed a top class defensive midfielder under Perez (at least he's learned from his mistake of letting Makélélé go), it was for 30million pounds - even though Rafa Benitez was willing to swap Alonso AND quite possibly extra cash with the 18million pound-rated Gareth Barry merely a season ago.

So not only are the traditional Big Four now unwilling to spend above their means to purchase anything apart from the necessary, but they are finding some of their own star players' heads being turned by the offer of money no footballer has ever heard of in the history of the sport.

He might not be a superstar, and he was slightly over-priced, but United will have to make do with players like Antonio Valencia (right) due to the inflated transfer market.

United had Ronaldo and Tevez nabbed by both Madrid and City respectively, Liverpool lost Alvara Arbeloa and Alonso to Madrid, Arsenal allowed Adebayor and Toure to move to City and even Mr. Chelsea himself, John Terry, waited to the final day of the transfer window to pen a new contract to indirectly, and painfully, rule out a move to City... for now.

Then again, that does seem to add some spice to the English Premier League. The fact that the traditional Big Four haven't got to spend big means that one of them could quite possibly be knocked off their perch come May. We've seen it time and again in football - money does buy success; so I fully expect Manchester City to depose one of either Liverpool or Arsenal. At the moment, Liverpool seem the better bet, but we'll also have to wait and see how Arsene Wenger deals with his latest setback of losing to United and the controversy of Eduardo getting banned for two European games.

So maybe it's not just the rules and regulations that are making football so exciting to watch. TDD or not, last-minute player shopping sprees or not, the EPL still serves up the same drama every season; and I for one can't wait to see which of the Big Four will make way to establish the new Big Five. It's better than the Big Two in Spain anyway.