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Reports of Stewart Downing moving to Anfield have been met by a shrug from many Liverpool fans. This is depressing

The summer transfer window is the most obvious example of football’s refusal ever to stop happening. Even when it’s not technically happening: it is in fact still happening, so much so that football is now one of those elements that are always there, like the weather or traffic or our communal hunger for toggled brown leather corner sofas, a yearning that must apparently be serviced constantly by a network of hangar-sized out-of-town warehouses.

Most of this week’s transfer rumour stories have centred on familiar figures. Luka Modric may or may not be going to Chelsea. Either way he will continue to resemble a small boy dressed up as a witch, and to run with a football at his feet so naturally you feel without it he wouldn’t be able to move at all and would simply sit down and mope like a kangaroo with an empty pouch. Samir Nasri wants to leave Arsenal in order to earn more money. And Cesc Fábregas could finally be going to Barcelona, albeit this saga has dragged on for so long Fábregas himself has begun to resemble a sickly one-legged dog being tearfully rehomed on daytime TV.

Perhaps the most interesting story is the proposed £19m transfer of Stewart Downing to Liverpool, a move that has been greeted by some Liverpool fans with a shrug and by many as conclusive proof of the “English premium” clubs must pay for underpowered domestic maybes. This is a depressing reaction. Downing is the most undervalued of English footballers: intelligent, scuttlingly forceful and with some refined touches in his versatile left foot. He is an unusual English footballer in other ways too. Mainly because he seems to be getting better rather than worse with age, and fitter rather than more raddled with booze and knee‑snap. Going against the trend, he is also slightly better rather than slightly worse than he’s cracked up to be.

Despite this Downing is still seen as a peculiarly depressing figure. Why is this? Undoubtedly he has a terrible name. Stewart Downing. Downing. Down. Ing. If only he could have been called Stewart Davis or Steve Dawning or Stanley Devastating he might have sounded more like a compelling athletic force and less like a travelling paperclip salesman or the pale boy at school who used to be sick a lot and cry in PE.

It isn’t the name, though. Downing is a player cursed by association with the failings of others. At this point it is time to broach another subject. We need to talk about Steve McClaren. It’s time. Those years, McLaren’s England interlude, still seem hazy and smudged, a buried shame. There are players who have never quite recovered, the ones who emerged in a trickle to augment the wretched “Golden Generation” and who have since lost their way or remain burdened by the memories. We might even call these players the Ginger Generation.

David Bentley would perhaps have gone wonky in any event but he took his first wrong turn as a strainingly mimetic Ginger Generation David Beckham. Then there is the issue of Darren Bent’s Air of Lingering Crapness. This is entirely undeserved. Bent is a fine player but he will continue to carry his Air of Lingering Crapness, conjured in the first instance by that famous missed chance against Croatia at Wembley, a muff granted premature howler status and then crystallised into a chemical stain, the Air of Lingering Crapness that – despite repeatedly proving his worth – Bent retains.

There are others. I believe Steven Gerrard was destabilised during this period by his match-winning performance away to Andorra, where the notion took hold that through the power of running furiously he could become invincible in an England shirt, creating ultimately the tortured arm-waggling stickman of the last World Cup.

McClaren did at least have ideas, a sense of tactical fluidity (disastrously fluid: but still fluid) and an air of the cautious internationalist. Would England really be in any worse a position now if he had been allowed to learn on the job, to sharpen his guileless good intentions? Probably they would, but the fact remains the England team are essentially on hold under Fabio Capello and will only begin to be interesting again when they are presided over by a crazed, touchy, flailing Englishman wreathed in deliciously poignant passions.

McClaren may be too far gone to rehabilitate fully just yet, but Downing – his protege at Middlesbrough, the poster boy for the Ginger Generation and surely the only tyro England international to be booed while warming up – deserves a second viewing. He is at least realistic. Downing is what we can do right now. He’s not a peripheral jinker, a pretend Iberian. He’s not a thigh‑flexing warrior of the skies, the kind of muscular English centre-forward whose ideal incarnation appears to be Brian Blessed’s chest-beating birdman character in Flash Gordon.

With Downing McClaren had a sensible idea: building a team around neat, skilful, hard-working players rather than false prophets and self‑propelling celebrities. Downing would also be a smart buy for Kenny Dalglish: with a few more goals maybe even a Ray Houghton-ish team man, protector on the right of the blindly rampaging Glen Johnson. Give him a chance. Enjoy his craft and his energy. Bury the old shame. Give us all a break.

EnglandSteve McClarenLiverpoolAston VillaBarney Ronayguardian.co.uk

• Sir Alex Ferguson set to knock Liverpool off their perch
• United manager looks forward as Carlo Ancelotti waits

It was the day when, to borrow the famous old quote, Sir Alex Ferguson could reflect on knocking Liverpool off their perch. Manchester United’s 2-1 victory over Chelsea leaves them on the brink of overtaking their Merseyside rivals with a record 19th league title and, after almost 25 years in charge, Ferguson could finally proclaim them as “the most successful team in the country in terms of championship victories”.

They now need only one point from their last two games against Blackburn Rovers and Blackpool to confirm the 12th title of Ferguson’s reign. “It’s a fantastic feeling,” the most successful manager in the business said. “If you had said to me at the start of the season that we would need one point from the last two games to be the champions, I would have snapped your hand off.

“We will give them [Blackburn and Blackpool] respect and we won’t under-estimate them because it would be a dangerous thing to do and we’ve come too far for that. But one point … I think we’ll get that, and it’s a fantastic achievement [overtaking Liverpool].

“I would never have believed it could happen, to be honest. But as soon as we got that first one in 1992-93, the door opened to us. Once we got that first title, we have just improved and improved. The club have taken off.”

Javier Hernández opened the scoring inside the first minute and, from that moment, United overwhelmed a disappointing Chelsea side. Ryan Giggs crossed for Nemanja Vidic to head in the second goal after 23 minutes and, though Frank Lampard made it 2-1 from close range midway through the second half, the score barely reflected United’s dominance.

“I thought we were brilliant,” Ferguson continued. “Wayne Rooney could have scored six on his own. I don’t know how many chances we had to score. We got a little bit nervous [after Lampard's goal] because we kept missing all those chances and it gave them a lifeline. We should have been out of sight but that’s the way of Manchester United. We take it to the wire, leave those poor souls in the stands having heart attacks, sitting on the edge of their seats, biting their nails – and I was one of them.”

The defeat leaves Chelsea staring at the near certainty of finishing the season without a trophy and their manager, Carlo Ancelotti, facing an increasingly uncertain future. “It was difficult because we started so badly,” Ancelotti said. “It was very difficult to come back after that first half. The second half was much better but United played better than us and deserved to win. We have to accept this.

“The disappointment is when another team plays better than you. That happened, we have to accept it and we have to accept they were better than us over the season and they have deserved to win the league.”

Asked whether he would remain as manager, the Italian replied: “I don’t know. I hope so but it is not my decision.”

Ferguson, in stark contrast, reiterated that he would still be in charge at Old Trafford next season, regardless of what happens in the Champions League final against Barcelona on 28

• Blackpool manager says Adam was ’seriously mucked about’
• Clubs failed to agree price on transfer deadline day

Ian Holloway has criticised Liverpool for making Charlie Adam their “third choice” behind Andy Carroll and Luis Suárez in the January transfer window.

Adam, who is Blackpool’s captain, appeared likely to move to Liverpool but the deal fell through as the clubs could not agree a price. Carroll was signed by Kenny Dalglish, the Liverpool manager, for £35m after Suárez had earlier joined for £22.8m and Holloway said: “He shouldn’t be third choice, they shouldn’t be doing two other deals, Suárez and Carroll, and putting their energy into that and doing nothing for Charlie.”

Holloway was also critical of Adam’s agent, Kenny Moyes, who claimed that the 25-year-old had been “seriously mucked about” by Blackpool. Holloway said: “I think his agent should be very careful what he says, if it’s true. I’ve already had enough of this Charlie Adam thing. He’s my captain and if you look at how well he played last night [against West Ham], for me there’s no rush. The boy will go to a top club eventually but he has to go on the right footing, where they really want him, and to be perfectly honest I didn’t feel that was the case.

“Charlie is someone I care about immensely and I believe he’s improving. He’s a great professional and I believe he should walk into a club when they really want him. The whole thing is sharks swimming trying to bite pieces off my players, and at the end of day Charlie will get what he deserves. He’s still only 25. This is his first season in the Premier League.

“I’m very proud of us. The chairman stood there resolute and said: ‘That’s not good enough.’ I think it’ll be proven in time that what Charlie will eventually go for will be a decent amount of money for this football club.”

Adam nearly made a late move to Tottenham Hotspur on transfer deadline day. Following Spurs’ 1-0 win over Blackburn Rovers on Wednesday evening Harry Redknapp claimed that it was Blackpool who had actively attempted to sell Adam to Spurs.

The Tottenham manager said: “Blackpool came on to us, asking would we be interested. It was 10.30pm on deadline day and I was in a hotel restaurant having a bit of pasta. I told Daniel [Levy] I would be very interested. I love Charlie Adam, he’s a good player but I said I thought they had left it too late and that turned out to be the case.”

A Blackpool spokesperson told the Guardian that an agent had “misled Tottenham” by attempting to sell the midfielder to the north London club.

BlackpoolIan HollowayLiverpoolTransfer windowJamie Jacksonguardian.co.uk