I like a bit of spice with my football. Some controversey, a shock result or incident and especially a spectacular transfer story.

But this window was one big let down. Aston Villa spent almost as much on Ashley Young as Tottenham did on Dimitar Berbatov, while Tottenham tried to outdo that by spending 10 million on an unproven 17 year old left back.

Other than that, there was nothing. West Ham signed a bunch of average players for silly money, and tried to sign a decent player in Bent for simply outrageous money. The big four stayed clear, with only Manchester United throwing out their bi-annual 20 million bid for Owen Hargreaves to no avail. Admittedly, this is exactly what the window system was introduced for. To allow smaller clubs the chance to hold onto their star players while still strengthening mid-season. The fact that only Liverpool made any signings of significance (Mascherano) suggests that things are working.

Working, for the clubs that is, because as a fan the January window is fast becoming as disappointing as watching my club each week.

When Southampton announced an “unnamed” Premiership club was willing to meet their nearly 10 million asking price for 17 year old left back Gareth Bale, I’ll admit I thought it had to be Manchester United throwing their excessive weight around once again.

But apparently, the bid - seemingly accepted now - was from Tottenham, who had a wad of cash burning a hole in their pocket after being beaten to Ashley Young by Aston Villa. If the money paid for a relatively unproven Young seemed silly, then the fee for Bale is downright criminal.

After a terrible performance against Newcastle, leading twice only to lose 3-2, and a terrible performance against a 10 man Fulham, needing a late goal to draw, and a terrible (and now typical) second half performance against Arsenal’s U-12s at home, it seemed like there may have been better ways for Martin Jol to spend. Bale may be an immense player in a few years, but if Spurs keep playing like they have been then it’s hardly going to matter.

With apparently at least 10 million to throw around this window, the money should have gone towards another option at left midfield to support Malbranque or - if we're being Football Managers - a new central midfielder who is willing to battle and fight and tackle. An ACTUAL defensive midfielder, not the porous bits of wet paper that Huddlestone and Zokora seem to be when we're trying to get the ball back.

Scouting is easy.

Chelsea may have paid Tottenham a couple million pounds for Frank Arnesen and his scouting network but they were paying for his connections, not his eye for talent. A quick browse through the players he brought to Tottenham (Emil Halfredsson, Spase Dilevski, Rodrigo Defendi, David Limbersky et al) showed that the world's premiere Chief Scout got a hell of a lot more wrong than he got right. In fact, if I compare the real life careers of all the youngsters I unearthed in Football Manager 2006 in the last year alone to those that Arnesen has - the evidence clearly shows that Abramovich should be handing me a few hundred thousand quid a year instead. The World Club Championship, chock full of relatively unknown players, represented a perfect opportunity to hone my skills further.

So as Auckland FC and Al Ahly kicked off I was sure that a few players would catch my eye, and a couple quick emails to Premiership clubs would signal the beginning of a new career as a football scout. But after 20 odd minutes I realised the one thing that every talent spotter must be capable of, that I was clearly not - enduring terrible, terrible football matches in search of new talent. Auckland FC were full of industry and effort, Al Ahly were high on technical skill but the match remained somewhat amateurish. Passes flew miles out of bounds by accident, players fell comically and the referee seemed a bit confused.

I'm committed to sticking to the task of finding some true talent that has to exist when you pit the best clubs from each confederation against each other. But in 94 grueling minutes I learned exactly why Frank Arnesen's job is not quite as fun as, say, Steve McClaren's. Popping over to watch FH Hafnarfjordur in order to scout Halfredsson or Viktoria Plzen to get a final view on Limbersky is almost not worth whatever Roman is paying him.

Almost.