Perhaps the only memorable moment in Pogmentary, for a time the lowest-rated show on IMDB, arrives when Paul Pogba has that instantly infamous phone call with his agent Mino Raiola in which Manchester United ’s £300,000-a-week contract offer is described as nothing.
"Paul, you are in a situation which is very particular. You have no idea. You have no idea," Raiola says on the call.
"Did Manchester [United] make a second offer?" Pogba responds.
"Yes,” Raiola says. “They absolutely want you to stay. For me, the offer doesn’t reflect that. I told them, ‘If you want him to stay, don’t make that offer’. I will make them understand that if they really want you to stay and they want to build a project around you, this time they have to act differently and put the money on the table.”
"They’re bluffing," the midfielder replies, "How can you tell a player you absolutely want him and offer him nothing? Never seen that."
It paints a nasty picture of what agents are thought to do; an even worse portrait of the motivation of some players; and shines an overly revealing light on the negotiating approach of clubs.
But it is not reflective of the entire industry and during a transfer window in which many of the biggest names decided their fate early, it is necessary to take a broader view of what really happens at the trading circus.
This is the anatomy of a transfer.
Step One - Identification
It all begins with identification. Clubs routinely plan up to a year in advance, pinpointing areas of the squad that require improvement.
From there the recruitment departments - again, their scale dependent on the size of the club - get to work in drawing up shortlists that can look at everything from strengths and weaknesses to details of a player’s personal life to determine whether they can settle in with ease.
Sometimes the chief scouts will go to the club’s director of football or manager with a recommendation. On other occasions they can instruct the scouts to watch a target extensively to compile a dossier.
There is a famous old story above David Moyes that goes a long way to explaining the “Dithering Dave” nickname that has trailed him for years but even further to scale of work that goes in to maximise the chances of a transfer succeeding.
While in charge at Everton he would get up to a dozen different scouts to compile up to 50 reports on a player before moving forward with an offer. Those reports would be focused on a number of different criteria, not all related to a player’s on-pitch ability.
James Smith, then head of technical scouting at Goodison Park, said he had 5,000 reports from 1,000 different players on file, information classified with the secrecy of a sensitive diplomatic document.
Data is increasingly at the forefront of decision making. Led by Liverpool ’s model, it is no surprise that clubs with American owners are pushing the use of numbers to guide recruitment. Chelsea, who appear to be doing some astute business headlined by Raheem Sterling's arrival, are in the process of making a similar shift.
Down the pyramid managers, without a web of scouts or data analysts to rely on, need to become more hands on and develop an encyclopaedic knowledge of not just players but their availability, contract status and representation.
Asked to name the key to his recruitment success Matt Gray, the Sutton United manager, made no bones about the effort required. “Hours of hard work watching videos and getting out on the road,” he said. “We pride ourselves on doing that. It’s about knowing the players and unearthing little gems coming out of under-23 football.”
Step Two - Registering interest
Convinced that the player can do a job for the team, it is time to let it be known through the right channels. This is where the rumour mill cranks up, where gossip is a core currency and where the language of transfer comes into its own.
No one speaks like that in real life, you might think. But more often than not those involved will point out the transfer market is not real life.
Players may soon become wantaway wingers or sulking strikers stalling on new deals. Clubs may be keen to splurge or table a bid, they might even swoop in with an audacious offer amid interest from a rival club. Agents, meanwhile, can urge their clients to down tools … and use journalists to get their message out.
Which is exactly what has been happening with Cristiano Ronaldo in recent weeks as he looks to navigate his exit from Old Trafford. This is where agents really begin to earn their money, whipping up interest in their players.
In the age of incremental updates - where no news is often considered news - the wheels can turn very slowly. But do not underestimate the importance of tittle-tattle.
Gossip is exchanged in the dressing room, too, and any player with a social media account who claims to ignore all speculation is simply lying.
“People who claim they block it out don’t,” said Padraig Amond, the Irish striker who famously scored FA Cup goals against Tottenham, Leicester and Manchester City while a Newport player. “There are so many transfer pages on Twitter they will throw anything out and look to hit the jackpot with one or two.
“I’ve been linked with some of the maddest moves. There was one where I was linked to a move and my agent had spoken to the manager a year previous and he wasn’t interested so we knew it was never going to happen. Then there was one when I was linked with a £200,000 move but I was already a free agent.”
For agents the media rumour mill, preposterous as it can often be, is still useful for one primary reason. “It’s about testing the waters, seeing if the selling club are interested in a deal,” one agent said. “Because the club looking to buy can look silly if they are putting in an offer for a player who isn’t for sale.”
Step Three - Offer and negotiations
The fax machine is dead. Long live the fax machine.
Almost every offer comes via email and rare is the initial bid that is accepted.
What works down your local fruit and veg stall works in the transfer market. A low ball offer comes in and is swiftly rejected. Another higher offer comes in, the seller sets their position out. Eventually a sum considered acceptable to both is found.
Players, via their agents, are kept in the loop throughout - or at least they should be. Paperwork is readied and a medical is pencilled in.
It sounds straightforward but initial offers can sometimes be a little less than meticulous. Last summer one Premier League chairman phoned up a rival to enquire about a player only to be informed that the star in question had been unveiled by his new club a couple of hours previous. In an industry packed with gossip addicts, the story was quickly spread among boardrooms and agents.
Clubs and agents are acutely aware of reputations. There is a reason Daniel Levy, the Tottenham chairman, is considered among the most difficult to do a deal with. On the flip side, clubs under new ownership, such as Chelsea and Newcastle, are wary of being taken for a ride by opponents preying on ruling figures who are new to football.
Sources on Tyneside have stressed that they will not be exploited by sellers quoting ludicrous sums, while in West London the stall was set out by quickly shutting down enquiries about luring Hakim Ziyech away for next to nothing. The Moroccan could leave in the next few weeks but it will not be for a pittance.
The same logic applies as far down as the National League, where new owners at Wrexham reshaped the market last season in a division where many clubs (and players) relatively live hand to mouth.
“Wrexham are easy to pick on but whenever there’s a new club in town with new owners who are spending, that’s where the agents and players have a reference point,” Peter Freund, the majority owner of Dagenham and Redbridge, explained.
“As soon as they hear a club has done that, it creates a new baseline. The reality is there are enough teams spending that if I don’t do it someone else probably will. And that’s OK.”
For Dagenham, and most of the fifth tier, the turnover is far higher compared to the Premier League because contracts are shorter.
Freund added: “The National League is basically free agents, at the end of the season you look at your contracts and there are seven or eight still under contract and you have to go out and get everyone else again. I don’t love that.”
This is where agents really earn their corn and those who choose to represent themselves can sometimes be exploited. Take the Championship player advised by his family rather than a registered intermediary who signed a five-year deal as a teenager for £1,000 a week, has made more than 200 appearances and is yet to get a pay rise.
Agents will know the wage structure at a club and from there have a vital understanding of what his client should be earning compared to new team-mates. The same inside knowledge is vital when agreeing upon performance incentives.
The biggest names may have highfalutin notions of bonus payments for winning the Ballon d’Or but for the majority of players there are simple milestones - appearances, goals and clean sheets - built in while end of season bonuses based on finishing position are dealt with by squads.
“The higher you go up the more agents get stick,” Amond says. “I speak to my agent quite a bit - I’m more than a client, we’re friends. You can get taken advantage of without one. They know what the going rate for players in your position at your level is. They are on top of all that and it’s very important. You don’t want to sell yourself short. Some of the money from the big agents at the top is a bit crazy but they are very good at what they do.”
Step Four - The medical
Clubs should already be aware of significant injury issues - if the red flags were waving enough they would never have made a bid - but there are instances of unbeknown issues popping up.
A medical can be broken into several separate examinations and in the vast majority of cases are passed without hitches.
There are electrocardiogram and echo tests to check a player’s heart. Players go through a series of exercises - jumping, running, twisting - to determine their musculoskeletal strengths and weaknesses while previous injuries may be scanned at a local private hospital to determine risk of re-injury. Clubs may even take measurements of body fat or take players to a dentist.
When there are existing conditions - most obviously in the case of Christian Eriksen joining Manchester United this summer - further tests are carried out for assurance.
It can be a nervy time for players who are already mentally preparing for their new surroundings but with millions of pounds at stake clubs are increasingly eager to ensure they will not be hiring a player not capable of performing at full intensity twice a week for nine months.
Step Five - Paperwork
The boring stuff. But also the most important element. Fans who tune in to rolling news channels on deadline day will have become familiar with the deal sheet, less so FIFA’s Transfer Matching System. Work permits can be an issue, too, even more so post-EU departure - and clubs have been using specially designed calculators to see if players meet the points criteria that permits them to play in England.
There are rarely insurmountable hurdles at the paperwork stage, although close shaves nearing the deadline can get pulses racing. The Premier League says that it checks in with clubs in advance to see if any business is planned so they can be prepared to authorise everything.
When Amond made a rare switch from Irish club Sligo Rovers to Pacos de Ferreira of Portugal’s top flight in 2010 he was taken to a dentist for an examination. Things were dragging on and some of his new club’s officials needed to be reminded that the Irish deadline was earlier. They unsurprisingly sped up and all the paperwork was sent to the relevant authorities.
Step Six - Completion and unveiling
Everything signed and delivered, it is time for the club’s in-house media to kick into gear - although players have often posed in the new kit before a deal is completed.
Just ask Dan James about Leeds before he joined Manchester United.
The unveiling has become an increasingly important aspect in the social media era. Video clips with production values scarcely different to a slick TV series, imaginative photoshoots such as Gabriel Jesus posing on the Emirates Stadium roof.
Page views, social impressions and engagement time are all vital metrics as clubs do battle to grow their digital presence.
Earlier this week Manchester City brought their three summer signings on to a stage outside the stadium to answer some generic questions in front of supporters. Nobody learnt anything ground-breaking but it was a simple gesture that can make fans feel in touch with their club and bring some easy media attention.
Still, it pales in comparison to Real Madrid presenting their latest galactico to a busy Bernabeu. “It was a very surreal situation and I was very nervous," Gareth Bale said in 2013. An ovation reserved for very few, it can easily make the pressure to perform unbearable.
After all of the work to get to a new destination, players have the simple task of exceeding expectations. “I’ve seen players who haven’t had the best reaction on social media when moving and straight away they are battling to win people over,” Amond adds. No wonder so many find it difficult to adapt.
