By Tony Attwood
- Arsenal’s squad: do we have space for all 28 players we are signing?
- Football supporters are treated like plankton – and it is not just England fans
And so we have moved on from the seemingly endless list of players that Arsenal are interested in to players that Arsenal are interested in, but the current contract holders won’t let go. Tomorrow it will be that they won’t let the player go, especially to Arsenal, and then it will be anyone except Arsenal. Then the window finally comes to an end, and we will see that by and large Arsenal got the players they wanted and the rest was pretty much a smoke screen.
Of course, this summer the smoke screen is being aided by the WC while the managers of players who have meandered off to foreign parts hold their collective breaths in case any of their highly valuable “assets” suddenly get an injury and the players’ values drop to around 10% of what it was being talked up as.
Thus, at the moment in this cycle, Newcastle are “determined to retain their Brazil midfielder Bruno Guimarães in the face of growing interest from Arsenal.” But you probably already read that somewhere else. So in an approach which basically aims to turn attention somewhere else, Arsenal allegedly say they want to sign Kenan Yildiz.
But what the newspapers and others virtually never do is point out how transfers really work. So since I was just about the only person in the country not to watch the international thing last night, here’s a rundown of the process.
1: Arsenal decide that any of three or four players would be a valuable addition to their squad if they could persuade the players’ current employers to let them go and the price was reasonable. So the diktat is agreed in the club – we won’t ever mention those three or four players.
2: Arsenal draw up a list of players who really they have no interest in, but which they know journalists might believe they could be interested in buying.
3: A journalist who is secretly friendly to Arsenal’s cause is slipped two of the names of the players on the list and asked to write about them over the next week.
4: Journalists with no serious contact with Arsenal pick up on the story that Arsenal fancy these two players and so run pieces in their papers saying “Sources close to the club are saying that Arsenal are seriously interested in….”
5. With attention thus diverted, Arsenal’s real negotiator approaches the club that has the contract with the player to see what the real situation is. If there is any chance that Arsenal might be able to buy the player, discussions continue in complete secrecy, such that even the player himself doesn’t know these are going on.
6. The fake stories about other players Arsenal might want are dropped by Arsenal and its own fake story tellers. In response, journalists outside the Arsenal information group notice that these names are not being mentioned any more and so talk up these rumours. This distracts everyone and doesn’t cost Arsenal a penny.
7. As it becomes clear that everyone is in agreement over the transfer in terms of the the player in point 5, the clubs mentioned in point 4 issue statements to the effect that they have shown Arsenal the door and won’t be bullied into sellng their best players – and they keep this up even if there are negotiations going on elsehwere to do just that, and sell at least one of their best players.
8. If fans protest about a club selling its best player, the club puts out a statement saying it was either sell him or put up the prices in the stadium.
9. The club puts up its prices. The newspaper that has published what prove to be false stories about an Arsenal transfer or non-transfer blames either a blog or an “Arsenal insider. “Meanwhile, blogs run stories to the effect that “Arsenal are looking to boost their squad in the coming season through the signing of…”
10. Arsenal, having a squad that is smaller than the squads of the majority of clubs in the League, slip journalists notes saying that Arsenal need to sell some of their “bloated squad” before they can sell. As in, “But with a bloated squad, the team first had to make some sales, and they kickstarted the process by agreeing a deal to sell Leandro Trossard to Besiktas.” And some sources are called “reliable” as with “According to the reliable Hand of Arsenal…” and “Julian Alvarez drops major Barcelona transfer hint”
11. The ‘ Meanwhile , at the other side of town ‘, senario – Arsenal , especially Berta , is looking reportedly at Italy ! So many players that are now not wanted or about to shipped out !