Manchester City are well within their rights to feel aggrieved about the way in which Arsenal have handled their pursuit of Mikel Arteta.
Clandestine meetings in the small hours may be necessary to get some transfer deals done but it is hard to wonder whether that was the case where Arteta was concerned.
City did not intend to stand in Arteta's way, they acutely understand his ambition to prove himself at the highest level and he will eventually depart with their blessing. Indeed football.london understands that his current employers do not hold Arteta responsible for the way things have panned out in recent days.
Even now - as Arsenal push back their press conference in anticipation of Arteta's unveiling and with all the terms agreed between the incoming head coach and the club - City fume. As first reported by the Manchester Evening News, the Premier League champions have indicated they are not in talks with their Premier League rivals over a compensation package.
Their stance is hardline. Pay the fee - believed to be £2million - or you don't get your manager.
Privately they must understand that these imperfect negotiations are merely how business is done these days and for every time City are on the receiving end of these back channel agreements they could find themselves making them.
In 2014 Arsene Wenger fumed over Bacary Sagna's move to the Etihad, hinting that City had tapped up the right-back, something the player forcefully denied.
Three years later Arsenal felt no less aggrieved when City's summer-long pursuit of Alexis Sanchez resulted in an opening bid around 48 hours before the transfer window was due to close. The Gunners found themselves left with an unhappy forward who had been encouraged to dream of playing under Pep Guardiola.
Does this justify Arsenal's actions? Absolutely not and there are few logical explanations for why they did not simply march through the front door earlier in this process, at the very least once they were certain Arteta would want to join.
But it is that uncertainty over whether the target, be they player or manager, would want to join that forces clubs to take this sort of action time and time again, as Guardiola himself noted.
"Sometimes it's not easy to handle this kind of situation," he said earlier this week. "We cannot deny that all the clubs around the world make first contact behind the scenes, try to avoid the clubs that are in charge.
"The media don't realise it so that process is normal. All I can say is that Mikel was clear with me and that's all. Perhaps there is a problem with the chairmen and the CEOs – they have to talk to each other."
Certainly Arsenal would have done themselves no harm if a senior figure had simply mentioned to a City counterpart that they would like to gauge Arteta's interest in the role. The Mancunians insist they would not have stood in his way.
Yet their failure to do so does not justify City's indignant reaction. As their own manager noted, no-one's hands are clean in the murky world of football negotiations.
