Arsenal's technical director Edu has provided some finer details of the club's deadline day capture of Thomas Partey - claiming the deal was seven months in the making.
The Gunners were linked with a move for the Ghanaian all summer but waited until the final day of the transfer window to trigger his release clause.
Atletico Madrid were angry that Arsenal gave them little to no time to bring in a replacement by leaving it so late to complete the deal.
But Edu reckons the Gunners were working on the deal for half a year and that Arsenal were faced with many obstacles in the lead up to having Partey sign on the dotted line.
"One day I would like to show the fans how we work, or how we worked because if you saw my plan six or seven months ago when I did it with Mikel, Thomas was there already," he told Arsenal.com.
"So you see how many months we had to try to find the right player for the club.
"So many things to do, so many meetings, we had to see how we were going to buy the player, if we had the financial situation to buy the player, the legal process, the financial process, talk to the player, talk to the agent, so there are a lot of things around this but in the end we did it!"
Edu was forced to wait it until until getting confirmation from those above him that Arsenal could proceed with a bid.
This is what held up the process on the day, and resulted in Atletico finding out late that the Gunners had triggered the midfielder's release clause.
Edu added: "When I received the green light from the board and the owners. To be fair, it is a huge investment for this moment which we are in now and of course we need the green light from them.
"When I showed my plan to them, they were so excited, they understand the plan and pressed the green button and then I felt very, very confident because it is not easy to invest a lot of money in this period of time."
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