Arsenal Transfer News: Arsene Wenger Smart to Keep Luis Suarez Dealings Private

The last thing Arsene Wenger needs to do is get in a public battle over Luis Suarez.

Per the Daily Mail's Martha Kelner, Wenger has said that he's not going to use press conferences to talk about Arsenal's possible transfer targets:

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I don’t understand this kind of thinking. I wouldn’t like to talk openly about negotiations because that’s not my target in a press conference. We will work very hard to strengthen our squad, without naming any specific names.

When you want to buy any player you need the agreement of the club and the player. It’s like going to your neighbour and saying, “I want to buy your house, move out tomorrow morning”. I will treat every transfer in a fair, respectful way.

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Arsenal try to hold themselves up to a certain ideal. There's the "Arsenal Way" of doing things. The club even has a page dedicated to it on their website. Surely that edict doesn't include trying to antagonize the club with which you're trying to do business.

For those Arsenal supporters wanting to see something different, think back to when Cesc Fabregas was being pursued by Barcelona. It seemed at every opportunity, Arsenal were being undermined.

It was ridiculous when Pepe Reina put a Barcelona shirt on Fabregas at Spain's celebration after the 2010 World Cup. Then came Xavi openly speaking about Fabregas' motivations about wanting to leave Arsenal.

While that may have been true and probably didn't have any bearing on whether Fabregas would leave, it's just not the way you want to see business getting done.

Even from a more practical point of view, going public with your transfer business does you almost no good whatsoever in the market. This is the time when you want to play your cards close to the chest.

The second you start going on about players X, Y and Z, other clubs are put on alert, especially if those players weren't regarded as being available. Then the opposition knows exactly which players to follow and what kind of price it's going to take to get them

It's a bit different with the situation surrounding Suarez. The BBC's David Ornstein reported the Uruguayan could possibly put in a transfer request to speed up a move away from Liverpool. The cat's already out of the bag regarding the player's desire to leave and Arsenal's interest in him.

Taking whatever is going on behind the scenes between Liverpool and Arsenal and letting the fans and journalists in will not help the transfer one bit, though. Liverpool are really digging in for a fight.

If Wenger was to speak at a press conference and say, "We have made a £45 million bid for the player, and he wants to leave. I don't know what is taking so long for the deal to happen," or something to that extent, it would just further the Reds' resolve. Brendan Rodgers would be even more motivated to hold on to his star striker just to stick it to Wenger.

You can call Wenger many things, but you can't call him stupid. Although his failings in the transfer market are there for everyone to see, he's completely right in this regard. Press conferences are not the time to openly speak about a buying a player.