Pavlyuchenko’s agent: Redknapp is a complex guy, but I wouldn’t call him a hypocrite

Oleg Artyomov, the agent of Lokotomitv Moscow striker Roman Pavlyuchenko, shed some light on his client’s transfer from Tottenham in an exclusive interview to Sports.ru correspondents Denis Romantsov and Vladislav Voronin.

«When Pavlyuchenko ended up rooted to the bench, did you meet Redknapp?»

«I did, several times. He always said Pav is a fantastic striker, even to his face, but then hardly ever played him. You have to know him to understand that he is a complex man. But I wouldn’t call him two-faced. He is at an age, where it is too late to change as a person. He says one thing, and then does another, but there is nothing anyone can do about it.»

«Why did you deny the fact of the negotiations with Lokomotiv for so long?»

«It was a kind of game between us and [Spurs chairman– Sports.ru] Daniel Levy. I couldn’t reveal my cards. Lokomotiv president Olga Smorodskaya and I met on several occasions, secretly. But we had to insist to the press that nothing was going on. Lokomotiv’s scouting staff did a great job in this transfer window, they should get 10 points out of 10.»

«Smorodskaya said recently that Pavlyuchenko’s transfer was hanging in balance because Spurs were going after Louis Saha as a replacement…»

«That was one of Levy’s last conditions. The deadline was three hours away, but Spurs were asking for a lot of money presenting us with some difficult conditions, including the transfer of Saha. But we still managed to complete the deal on our terms, so at the very end he said: ‘That fee was way to low for me. We wouldn’t have sold Pav if it wasn’t for the deadline.’ I respect him as a businessman, who runs the club the best way he can, but sometimes the student outplays the master. I still thing we’ll get a text from him in a couple of days saying ‘It was a pleasure working with you’ though.»

«What is he like, the Spurs chairman?»

«He is a clever man, he knows the game through and through, a very shrewd negotiator. A few times we met casually and he would wear trainers and jeans, though the his £200 000 watch gave him away.»

«Pavlyuchenko hinted that he could stay for another year and then leave for free. Was that a sort of blackmail on your part?»

«Well, not really blackmail, just a part of the game. We needed leverage against Levy because, deep down, we knew he would buckle, and he did. My interviews about Roman’s plans to wait for the living permit were in a way part of that game, too. Ultimately, Levy knew he would risk losing the player for free, so, even though he asked for a large fee initially, in the end he let Pav go.»