When young kids play together it is natural that at some uncomfortable moment one will look into the affairs of the others and feel inadequate.

This summer Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal manager, has had one of those periods he wants to forget. He never went a day without news of someone coming after his players and, at times, certain clubs making open overtures to some of his crew.

In all of this there were claims and counter-claims in the media about where certain players' loyalties lay. Some were described as mercenaries and then, of course, Sepp Blatter came along in the guise of Real Madrid negotiator, with his comments about footballers as slaves.

Mathieu Flamini had gone. Old man Jens Lehmann, too, and Barcelona were making eyes at Aleksandr Hleb. The midfielder was excited. Then Wenger just about admitted that Arsenal were a selling club, while the chairman, with his usual foot-in-mouth comments, said that they would not break salary structures to keep a player – something echoed by striker Robin van Persie, sitting somewhere in Switzerland or Austria.

However, what few noticed was that when the boys meet up for national duty and show off their trinkets, the poorer cousins look particularly poor. Imagine a player who earns £20,000 a week – an amount your average person would die for – meeting up with his mates who earn £80,000 to £120,000. In all of this there lies the knowledge that the poorer cousin is a much better player than the richer one, but that because the richer one has sold his services to the right club, he earns more.