THERE was a time when the summer months of cold turkey without football were eased with transfer speculation that kept giving you a fix while the players sunned themselves on a Balearic beach.

But, like many aspects of the modern game, it is now something that bores me.

I was already fed up of the Wayne Rooney saga before Gareth Bale joined the speculation party and now Luis Suarez is in on the act.

The media are in a frenzy over the futures of all three but the rest of us aren’t – and I would even suggest fans of Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool have got to the point where they no longer care that much about where their star players end up.

It is all getting so predictable as well with the same stories coming out of each club.

Rooney wants out of United, Chelsea make two bids, the club categorically state he is not for sale and then he mysteriously picks up successive injuries to miss pre-season matches. Likewise for Bale at Spurs who is the subject of a world-record bid from Real Madrid and Suarez at Liverpool who has also picked up a “knock” after bids from Arsenal.

The triumvirate seem to be following very similar paths through the respective exit doors, though Suarez has took his case to the next level by being the first to come out and publicly state his desire to leave Anfield.

It is a bold move, even for someone never shy of courting controversy, particularly to approach the British media you supposedly have no time or respect for to channel your opinion.

Now we have a situation where both club and player dispute the facts and the fans do not know who to believe – even Hercule Poirot would find it tough cracking the football transfer case.

If, as Suarez suggests, Liverpool did agree to let him go if they failed to make the Champions League then you have to wonder why?

After all the support, rightly or wrongly, they have invested in Suarez during his controversial few years at the club, do they owe him any favours? Surely it is he who should show some loyalty.

I wonder what those fans who have backed him, right up until Steve Gerrard’s testimonial game last weekend, now think of him and the way he is behaving.

Likewise with Rooney down the East Lancs Road. The United fans have forgiven him once after he expressed a desire to leave in 2010 and changed his mind – helped by a supposed wage rise to £250,000. I doubt he will be forgiven again.

For all the clubs, the “not for sale” stance is clearly to keep the price up but I would suggest all three would be best served letting their unhappy players leave – if just to end the tedium for us all.