On The Premiership:Retail therapy might be the perfect prescription for the consumer generation, but there is nothing soothing about football's January sales. While no restrictions apply to who can jump through the transfer window, in reality it is the last refuge for the damned and the despairing.

The bare facts say it all. Of the 54 transfers concluded last month, 32 were conducted by clubs in the bottom seven. In contrast, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United elected not to open their wallets, while Liverpool's five signings should all be filed under "ones for the future".

Harry Redknapp, the doyen of the dog-fight, set the standard for the strugglers last season, when some inspired new year's business prevented Portsmouth toppling back into the Championship. Equally canny work since then has transformed the south-coast club into the unlikeliest of European contenders.

Alan Curbishley occasionally gives the impression he says 10 Hail Redknapps before going to bed at night. He has referenced his work at Fratton Park on countless occasions since returning to management at West Ham and has now set his heart on emulating it, embarking on the sort of spending spree which would have given him palpitations at his previous club, Charlton. A virtually entirely new back four has been recruited, with Nigel Quashie and Luis Boa Morte drafted into midfield and Kepa Blanco lending pep to the attack.

It is a huge risk, and all the more so for Curbishley. The 49-year-old, who has found it difficult to cope with the microscopic media scrutiny which is an inescapable part of his new post, is not a natural born daredevil, and yet in gambling terms, this is the equivalent of twisting on 20.

The new arrivals have splintered the club's wage structure, threatening to further unsettle a squad which has already been racked by divisions this season, and then there is the issue of the fees themselves.

Even for a club bankrolled by an Icelandic biscuit baron, an outlay of £18 million in four weeks cannot simply be shrugged off and if West Ham were to lose their relegation battle, players are sure to be streaming out of Upton Park's wrought iron gates as quickly as they arrived.

Lucas Neill, one of the new boys, has already admitted his £50,000-a-week contract contains an escape clause - inserted, apparently, at the insistence of his new employers - and Matthew Upson last week pointedly refused to deny his own deal includes a similar caveat.

Both men may have waxed lyrical about the emotional significance of their new employers - history, tradition, 1966, all that guff - but even principles have their price. If West Ham's worst fears are confirmed at the end of the season, they will be speeding down Green Street before you can even say "Baby Bentley".

Curbishley has identified West Ham's problem as a short-term one which requires an equally instantaneous solution. The average age of his new permanent signings is 27 - not ancient, but too old for the manager to consider them to boast unfulfilled potential. The manager is pinning his hopes on experience, although Quashie's record of being relegated with four different clubs - including Redknapp's Southampton in 2005 - might have given pause for thought. He is an ill omen, football's answer to Harry Potter's Grim.

But if West Ham appear to be taking the toddler's approach to a relegation battle - closing their eyes, blocking their ears and pretending the whole ghastly mess will simply disappear - the Premiership's other endangered species are at least behaving like grown-ups.

Watford are fiscally obliged to keep their spending to a minimum but their recruitment of Will Hoskins, Gavin Williams and Lee Williamson - three of the brightest talents in the Football League - proves they are considering a future which extends beyond May 13th. The cynics will say it is also evidence that Adrian Boothroyd, the manager, has given up hope but the club's clear thinking at a desperate time is surely to be applauded.

Charlton, too, have acted prudently, although this is more through necessity than choice. Iain Dowie blew the club's transfer budget for the entire season last summer, leaving Alan Pardew with mere loose change jangling in his pockets. There have been just three new arrivals, so the club's fate now rests on Pardew's ability to extract the best out of an underachieving squad.

Perhaps the most curious aspect of a typically frantic transfer window has been the relative idleness of Wigan Athletic. A club which recently set a new record for consecutive defeats might have been expected to bring in more than the ageing David Unsworth, the unproven Caleb Folan and the unknown Julius Aghahowa.

Then again, logic rarely plays a lead role in the unseemly squabble of a relegation battle.