Arsene Wenger has accused Europe's leading clubs of 'tapping up' his players, just as Emmanuel Adebayor agrees a new contract worth around £70,000-a-week at the club.
Wenger is angry at repeated comments from the likes of AC Milan and Barcelona about players such as Adebayor, who has been linked with a move away from London for much of the summer.
"There is a game going on in Europe where the big clubs tap up our players," Wenger said in The Times.
"They let us do the work and develop the players and then they think they can just come in and offer them big wages, but after they cannot come up with the transfer fee. It should be the other way round."
Indeed, Barcelona sporting director Txiki Bergiristain continued their apparent pursuit of the Togo striker yesterday, when he told Sky Sports News:
"Adebayor is one of the biggest players in football at the moment. There are possibly four or five strikers who could come to our club, one of biggest in Europe, and of course Adebayor is one of them."