Dave Seddon's Preston North End press view: Football's spotlight shone on Ben Davies when he signed for Liverpool

But even Liverpool’s new centre-half must have had to afford himself some thinking time to reflect on events of the past week.

Last Saturday he played for North End at Sheffield Wednesday, on Sunday he was scheduled to put pen to paper on a pre-contract agreement to join Celtic in the summer.

On Monday evening Davies signed for Liverpool in probably the biggest move on deadline day.

It shone football’s spotlight on the unassuming lad from Barrow, his life changing with a stroke of the pen across the transfer paperwork.

He was the headline act on Sky Sports’ yellow tie deadline coverage, his name was on hundreds of stories written in the press.

Davies’ social media accounts were trawled through by those looking for a bit of gossip, his Twitter followers now numbering 42,000 and counting.

There was a touch of class from start to finish about his move to Anfield.

When the Premier League title holders come in for a player from the Championship, which in this day and age is as rare as rocking horse droppings, there is only one going to be one conclusion.

This move happened with a velvet smoothness though, showing that transfers don’t have to be unnecessarily drawn out with all kinds of middlemen putting themselves in the way.

Liverpool approached the Lilywhites on Sunday morning, put their bid in that afternoon, Davies in the car on his way to Merseyside on Monday morning.

By late afternoon it was all done, the formal announcement of the deal made early evening once the Reds had their in-house media work with him.

Davies’ feet have hardly touched the ground since, with a first training session to negotiate, then a place on the bench against Brighton on Wednesday night.

On Thursday evening he was finally able to draw breath for a moment to post a proper farewell to Preston supporters via a message on Instagram and Twitter.

“I can’t thank everyone at @pnefc enough for the last 14 years,” wrote Davies.

“To make my debut as a 17-year-old was a dream come true and everything that followed including promotion and captaining the club has been incredible.

“I will always love the club and hope to be back as a fan one day.”

Genuine words from the heart there, a parting others might want to take note of.

Davies has the prospect of Premier League and Champions League football, he’s hit the big time.

It’s a bit of a throwback transfer isn’t it?

Top-flight clubs still do dip down the divisions to sign players but often young talent for their development squads. Davies moves at 25 though, with 145 games for North End under his belt and a further 104 appearances from his five loan spells.

When he was loaned out by PNE to Tranmere within a couple of weeks of being given a torrid afternoon by Sheffield United winger Jamal Campbell-Ryce, did he think one day he’d be pulling on a Liverpool shirt?

During his half-season playing for Newport on their difficult pitch, could he have imagined what would happen a few years later?

Hand on heart, as recently as Sunday morning Davies would admit the Liverpool move was beyond his wildest dreams.

After all, he was due to sign the Celtic agreement that day which would have taken him to Scotland in July once he’d seen out his North End contract.

The issue for PNE fans in all this is the fact Davies had got into the position of only having five months left on his Deepdale contract.

Likewise Ben Pearson going to Bournemouth, so too having to sweat on Alan Browne and Daniel Johnson before they signed new deals.

With Davies and Pearson, it meant accepting lower bids than PNE would have done had they had longer to run on their contracts.

Payments linked to appearances and sell-on clauses could bring in more money further down the line.

There’s a tough balance to strike here.

Do PNE try and hang on to their top players for as long as possible, get that extra season out of them before selling for a lesser fee?

Or do thoughts have to turn to a sale when players hit the last two years of their contracts?

A contract having 12 months or less to run equates to a lower fee in the market.

The best business North End have done in recent years is Jordan Hugill’s £9.5m sale to West Ham.

He had 18 months left when he was sold, the clock not quite ticking then.

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