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Spend half-an-hour in the company of Arsene Wenger and you will generally be left agreeing with everything he says.
But spend another 30 minutes away from the hypnotic eyes of the Frenchman and it is often not too hard to find holes in his arguments, which brings us on to the subject of Arsenal’s contract rebels.
Wenger has had us believe for the past couple of months that Arsenal could benefit from Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil refusing to sign new contracts and running down the final 12 months of their deals.
Defending his insistence that Sanchez will not be sold, despite Manchester City preparing a pre-transfer deadline bid, Wenger said: “The real question we have to answer is does the hunger index increase or decrease when you have a short contract or a long contract?
“I would be on the opposite side. That means the hunger index is higher when the contracts are shorter and it decreases naturally when the guys have long contracts.”
Wenger will always remember the 2003/04 ‘invincible’ season, but his so-called hunger index must not stretch back that far as Sylvain Wiltord and Nwankwo Kanu saw out the final year of their Arsenal contracts.
Granted, Wiltord and Kanu were competing for places with Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp back then but both players dropped off considerably in their final year at the club. Wiltord made 12 League appearances, which was two more than Kanu, and the pair scored seven times between them in all competitions.
And guess what? Once January came around and he was able to start negotiations over a free transfer summer move to Lyon, Wiltord did not score a goal for Arsenal in 2004 and made just two of his League appearances during that time.
Wenger has also argued that with a World Cup around the corner, Sanchez, who is one of the band of wantaway Premier League players to be unfortunate enough to miss the opening games through injury, and Ozil cannot afford to give anything but their best.
The early signs were not encouraging from Ozil in Saturday’s defeat to Stoke City, as the German was described as being a “liability” by Steven Gerrard.
But that will not worry Joachim Low too much. Ozil has been named Germany’s Player of the Year five times in the past six years, despite his inconsistent performances for Arsenal, so there is no evidence to suggest that his international place or form is dependent on what goes on at the Emirates.
City will be joined by half of Europe and beyond in their bid to sign Sanchez if he is still at Arsenal in January and German clubs will take an interest in Ozil with no transfer fee to pay.
Consider also what Chile would prefer in a World Cup year. Sanchez playing at full throttle in both the Premier League and Europa League for an entire season? Or the 28-year-old agreeing his big move in January and taking his foot off the gas for a few months before joining up with the Chile squad refreshed and with his future already sorted out?
Arsenal enjoyed one of the greatest seasons in the club’s history while Wiltord and Kanu were putting their feet up, but Wenger no longer has the Henry and Bergkamps of this world to carry his contract rebels.
England's friendly opponents reveal delusions of grandeur
As Gareth Southgate prepares to name his latest England squad on Thursday, the FA have lined up friendlies against the nations ranked one and two in the world.
Brazil and Germany have been invited to visit Wembley in November for the latest round of high-profile friendlies, assuming of course that England’s World Cup qualification will be assured by then.
England top Group F by just two points ahead of Slovakia, with Slovenia a further point behind, following the fortunate 2-2 draw with Scotland – ranked 58th in the world.
Should Southgate’s team drop points at home to Slovakia in a fortnight, ahead of the October visit of Slovenia, then automatic qualification for Russia will be anything but certain.
That is proof enough that England should not be too worried about the best in the world right now, particularly as recent evidence would suggest that nations such as Germany, Brazil and France view a game against us as little more than a training exercise.
We all got very excited when we beat Germany 3-2 last year, forgetting that the hosts had taken off most of their best players when they were still ahead, and look where that got us at Euro 2016.
Similarly, the 1-0 defeat in Dortmund back in March was no more than a testimonial for Lukas Podolski.
England have still not won a friendly since Southgate took over from Sam Allardyce last September and have only won two of his eight games in charge, which has gone largely unnoticed.
So instead of pretending that we need to be ready to face Brazil or Germany in a World Cup quarter-final, maybe Southgate and the FA should be concerning themselves more with the type of nations we have fallen down against in recent tournaments – Uruguay and Iceland.
Good weekend for...
Mick McCarthy. Ipswich Town made it four wins out of four in the Championship and five successive victories in total this season. The last time an Ipswich team managed that was under George Burley in the promotion campaign of 1999/00. McCarthy came under fire from some Ipswich supporters last season, but anybody who has ever met the straight-talking Yorkshireman would be desperate for him to get back in the Premier League.
Bad weekend for...
Marko Arnautovic. The Austrian forward arrived in England with a reputation for being a wild man in 2013, but seemed to get his discipline under control. But a brutal elbow on Jack Stephens earned Arnautovic a red card in just his second appearance for West Ham United since a £20million move from Stoke City. He has since apologised, but Arnautovic owes his new team-mates a few big performances when he returns.
Moment of the weekend
In fairness to Nathaniel Chalobah, it must be confusing for any former Chelsea youngster to remember who their team-mates are after being sent on loan all round Europe season after season. So we should really forgive Chalobah for not realising Harry Arter plays for Bournemouth and not Watford when he reacted to a shout of ‘leave it’ and squandered a great chance to score, instead allowing his opponent to clear.
Arsene Wenger banking on the 'hunger' of contract rebels could prove a fatal mistake