- If you were, thank you for listening to Untold on Radio 5….
- So here we are, the final moments of a season never to be forgotten – and a statue.
By Tony Attwood
According to the media, big clubs like Arsenal suddenly decide to make a bid for a top player without much preparation. The bid comes out of the blue, and the club that has the player’s registration, and the player himself, are usually taken a bit by surprise (according to the media).
But of late, a different sort of story has emerged – not about one specific transfer but about the way transfers can work in general.
In this scenario, Mikel Arteta has a private and most certainly not publicised meeting with the target player. It is not a format occasion but something much more relaxed in which the general approach is to “get to know each other” and “explore options” and “plans for the future”. It is, in fact, a way for both manager and player to see what the other is really like.
Thus, there is a chance to overcome the sort of prejudicial headline stories that the media tends to run each day, which are primarily based around the notion that out of the blue Arsenal (or any other club, come to that) will suddenly make a bid for a player. No planning, no research – suddenly there is a bid.
There are preliminary meetings between player and manager before any bid is put in, and such meetings are important these days because of the huge variety in the way the media talk about certain clubs. To see an example of this, we need only look at Tottenham, where film of the end of their match yesterday showed a packed stadium with fans celebrating as wildly as if they had just won the League and Cup Double. The notion of a revolving door of managers is hidden, fans are totally onside with the club, and everyone is happy.
To counteract both the one-off occasions and the media’s prejudice, the meeting between player and manager before there is any offer of a contract is set up to show player and manager what each other is really about, and what each is looking for. Of course, not every manager can pull this off, but it is a way of expressing the personality of the club to the player in a different light from that revealed by the media.
But it is not just chit chat, because this is also a chance for the manager and player to talk one-on-one without an agent or any other type of hanger-on in the room. The theme will be simple: this is what is going to happen next year at the club – and if you reveal anything of this to anyone, not only will we not make a bid, but nor will any other big club, because your name will be sullied forever.
The overall aim of course is to get the player to feel just how much the club want him – and it has to be him – without actually making a bid or even talking to the agent. This one-to-one, intense talk with the manager carries with it a much deeper message about how the club is run. It is a message that says, “We think of everything, we plan everything, we are going to win.” Clubs that don’t use this approach now look less positive and less enthusiastic.
Now this doesn’t mean that every player signs after such a meeting – and that is part of the point, because managers who reveal their intensity to players only want to sign players who are moved by their approach. The thinking is, “if you don’t want to sign for me after I’ve put on that sort of show, you probably won’t do what I want on the pitch when I do my pre-match and half-time talks.”
Of course, this style doesn’t work with every player – and equally of course, neither is it used with every potential signing, not least because agents make ever more outrageous demands and managers make ever more outrageous promises. But such meetings tell player and manager about each other’s personality – and that is important.
For we must remember just how chaotic transfer deals are. For a start, we have the media’s fantasy list, which usually stretches to over 100 players that Arsenal are trying to sign each summer. Then there are the offers being made by other clubs once it appears that Arsenal are after the player – this on the basis that “If Arsenal want him, he must be good.”
Next, there is the agent – and if he doesn’t think he is going to get a fair profit out of a transfer, he will tell the player not to take it. And of course, there is the team that the player is being approached by. A club that has just escaped relegation or a club that has just won the league: which would you choose to go to?
Tottenham have to explain how they are not going to be fighting relegation next season but will change the club dramatically, while Arsenal will be explaining how their team is ever evolving, having come runners-up three times before winning the league this season.
Both stories talk of the club progressing and doing ever better – the only difference is that one has just done it with one manager who has been at the club for over six years, and the other has to do it from a background of three managers in the past season. The player will, of course, think, “Yes, this guy seems to like my style of play”, and then ask, “But how long is he going to be at the club?”
Arteta, on the other hand, is 44 years old and is likely to be at Arsenal for quite a few more years. If you were a player, which club would you choose?
And this is one of the key reasons why Arsenal will keep growing and developing. If two clubs are interested in buying a top talent and the player looks at what Arteta has done in the past six years, and what a club like Tottenham has done, which one would he choose?
