ARSENE WENGER has expressed his disappointment at losing Mathieu Flamini to Milan under the Bosman ruling but hopes to persuade Alexander Hleb to remain at Arsenal despite an approach from Internazionale.
Arsenal intend to complain to Fifa over Inter's interest in Hleb, who was apparently courted by the Italians while the Premier League club were in Milan for their Champions League knockout tie in March.
The Belarussian midfielder (27), an £11.2 million (€14.2m) signing from Stuttgart in 2005, could yet invoke Fifa's "Webster clause" by which players can buy out the remainder of their contract after three years provided they do not move to a club in the same country.
"What people say about the buy-out clause, it is not as simple as it looks," said Wenger yesterday. "It is much more difficult and the clubs are reluctant to do that [invoke the clause]. We want to keep Hleb, we want him to be part of our team next year. It is as simple as that. We have lost one player. We do not want to lose more."
Wenger had hoped to retain his squad ahead of next season but, after refusing Jens Lehmann a new contract, he could yet see Hleb and Gilberto Silva follow Flamini away from the club.
Real Madrid's latest publicly expressed interest in Cesc Fabregas is unhelpful while William Gallas's future at the Emirates is by no means certain. That has proved unsettling, prompting Wenger to call for unity in the wake of Flamini's defection.
"We were close this year but we did not win and what I expect from my team is that, if you are a winner, you say: 'Let's come back next year and win'," said Arsenal's manager of 12 years. "If our players are not capable of doing that and just want to walk out for bigger contracts, for me that would be the biggest disappointment.
"If you are a winner you say: 'You beat me now in a game but give me a chance to come back and beat you.' That's what I expect of a team. If they cannot do that then it means I was wrong completely in my whole judgment of this team. That would be the biggest disappointment for the club - not only to not win this year but to not be capable of coming back together."
Flamini has signed a four-year contract worth about £65,000 (€82,432) a week at San Siro, considerably more than the deal proposed by Arsenal to retain him.
"It is a problem [the salaries on offer] but we did not master this situation [with Flamini] because when a player is out of contract he can sign where he wants," added Wenger. "I must say I am disappointed that he did that but, legally, he can do it."
Meanwhile, Thaksin Shinawatra's decision to get rid of Sven-Goran Eriksson could look even more ruthless by the end of the week after it emerged Manchester City might, after all, get the European football their owner so craves. While Thaksin continues to negotiate with Luiz Felipe Scolari, the results of Uefa's fair-play league are due to be announced on Friday and City have, at worst, a two-in-seven chance of qualifying for next season's Uefa Cup.
It would not be enough to save the Swede, with Thaksin committed to replacing the former England head coach, but it would strengthen Eriksson's feeling, as shared by the majority of City's supporters, that he would be leaving the club in a far stronger position than when he took over.
City's hopes depend on Uefa's fair-play table but they have reasonable grounds for optimism as England scored highly for long parts of the season and were second to Norway when the results were last announced in March. The winning league gets an automatic place in the Uefa Cup whereas the seven runners-up will go into a draw next Tuesday. From that, two sides will be nominated.
City are fifth in the Premier League's fair-play rankings but would be England's representatives because the clubs above them - Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal - have already qualified for Europe.
The irony is, if City were successful, it would be an extra bargaining tool for Thaksin and his representatives as they try to persuade Scolari to agree a deal worth an annual salary of £3.2 million (€4.05m) - £700,000 (€887,733) more than Eriksson's.
Thaksin initially refused to speak to journalists in Beijing about City yesterday, a sign, perhaps, he is aware of the scale of feeling among supporters, many of whom intend to take part in a protest on Sunday. Later he said there would be "an evaluation at the end of the season". Asked about what that would entail, he replied: "What needs to be changed, what needs to be added to the success of the club."
Thaksin was asked to comment on the reports about Scolari and rumours his advisers have approached Jose Mourinho. "We will discuss all of this at the end of the season. We have not decided yet [about who will be manager]. All of them - Sven, Scolari, Mourinho - they are all great coaches, great managers."
Kasper Schmeichel, the City goalkeeper who started the season in the first team but lost out to Joe Hart and has been on loan for most of the campaign, may be about to sign for Coventry.
