For those who don’t spend hours of their life playing Football Manager, here’s a quick summary of Transfer Conventions 101.

First, Club A expresses its interest in a player at Club B, either through a written or verbal enquiry, or a posited sum of money.

Club B then either rejects Club A’s advance for the contracted player, or accepts the proposed offer.

The targetted player then goes into contract negotiations with Club A. Once a contract is agreed upon, Club A confirms its offer to Club B, who pockets an agreed sum.

A real world example: Barcelona are interested in Cesc Fabregas as ‘backup’ to their plans to sign Frank Ribery - they call up Arsenal with a reported offer of £40million.

Manager Arsene Wenger, knowing he will then spend a shed-load of bucks as he loves a good splurge and will buy all sorts of overrated clangers, agrees to the fee.

Cesc Fabregas then accepts to warm Barcelona’s bench for 7-zillion euros a day on the condition that Ave Maria be played on the PA whenever he walks onto the pitch.

Manager Arsene Wenger, knowing that the player is contracted to the club, is comfortable playing in London and has said numerous times he is not leaving, promptly tells Barcelona where to go.

A very simple lesson, but for those doing journalism courses alongside this class, you’ll probably forget that when your chief of staff hammers a deadline on your feeble minds.Remember RVP’s contract wranglings?

In short, Cesc is going nowhere, the player has said so enough times and Arsenal hold all the cards regardless of how many headlines favour Barcelona and Real Madrid.

One player to secure his future, however, has boosted Arsenal in two helpful ways.

Firstly, Robin van Persie’s new contract assures Arsenal of an extremely gifted footballer’s services for years to come.

But even more importantly, it suggests that Wenger convinced the Dutchman of better improvements to the side as suggested by his concerns earlier in the year.

Robin van Persie had earlier voiced frustration at Arsenal’s slump in the 08/09 season and wanted assurances that the club would bring in the right players to improve our lot.

With a string of other players secured contractually and big, mean, striker-eating-machine Vermaelen signed up, things are looking on the up for Arsenal.

Sure, we may have just missed out on Felipe Melo and are yet to sign a vital central midfielder, but time remains on our side.

In short, I can bet my house on the fact van Persie would never have signed if he knew Cesc Fabregas was leaving Arsenal.

In a quick news round-up, Manuel Almunia has put his tuppence-worth in over the need for more experience and Bacary Sagna has spoken of his ‘trust’ in his Arsenal team-mates.

Updates may be a little sketchy over the next few days as I’m away from home, work and internet – but I’ll update when I can.

In the meantime, why not join Third-Gen’s facebook page? Click on the link on the sidebar – or if you want it even easier, click on this doohickey here   Just another way to get Gen-ified and get updates on Portal.

Hate-mail to Joan Laporta in the comments – enjoy your Friday!

Filed under: Arsenal, Transfer Rumours