Despite being an urbane and sophisticated 53 year-old man, with all his own teeth and a near-complete set of Jennings first edition hard-backs, I have found myself as desperate for transfer news as I was when a boy of 14. More so, perhaps, as there was no transfer window then, and you couldn't focus your attention as happens now.
So I'm as wound up as the next idiot and check this and other sites far too often to see if anyone has actually signed for us. I want Khoulibaly and Witsel and Carvalho, even though I've not really seen much of them. But they're glossy and expensive and glamorous. I want Moshiri to spend an absolute fortune, even though I know money doesn't necessarily mean quality. I want Stones and Lukaku to stay, although the former can't head the ball, and the latter can't trap it.
The truth that I'm reluctant to acknowledge is that that FourFourTwo piece makes a great deal of sense. We have the chance now to build something lasting, and that takes time and patience and strategy, especially when, rich though we are, we're not by any means among the richest or most glamorous clubs in our league. So that means being shrewd, and buying Williams and Gueye before we buy Neuer and Griezman. It means sprucing up Goodison before we build by the river, and, in all likelihood, getting top six before getting top four.
While we can all list our historic achievements, we have to acknowledge we've won nothing since 1995, and that all our periods of success have been more fleeting and sporadic than they should have been. Yes, that's partly because league titles have on occasion heralded world wars, in the way a flapping butterfly can cause an earthquake, but it's mainly been down to poor management and complacency and lack of vision.
A vibrant, forward-thinking, pro-active board and management structure will see us right over a couple of generations at least. Better that than lurching impatiently into paying over the odds for players who don't really want to be here just to make a splash and to satisfy the demands of an attention-deficient fanbase, of which I'm definitely one.
This has been brought to you through gritted teeth.