Arsene Wenger - My Fake Diary

Wednesday, 23 May 2012

Arsenal will offload seven stars, including Nicklas Bendtner, Denilson, Sebastien Squillaci and Johan Djourou, to free up cash to bid for Blackburn's 21-year-old winger Junior Hoilett says the Daily Mirror.

The management of football transfers is actually an art form, and akin to a game of poker.

The player that we are after - Player A - we don't talk about to the press. We monitor his form, we speak to his agent, we speak to his club. Eventually we may even speak to the player.

The agent comes back to us - he wants more money. We tell we'll consider this request and get back to him in 48-72 hours - after speaking to the Shareholders, Finance Director or Chairman.

In the meantime we 'leak' a little bit of information to the papers about a player we don't want - Player B - so the Player we do want realises we may go somewhere else. I even speak in glowing terms of Player B in the press. So far I have not mentioned Player A at all in the press so by now he is feeling very paranoid and thinks his chance has gone.

48 hours pass and we haven't got back to his agent, and his agent doesn't want to appear desperate so he doesn't contact us. But his agent does use a PR firm to say that Club B are also after his player.
Luckily I know how the game works, and normally I am also friendly with manager and chairman of Club B.

Its really all about who can bluff the longest. Sometimes it goes wrong - at the start of last season I couldn't get a player and had to bring in three on transfer deadline day.