Vieira feeling Real pressure

Patrick Vieira did not want it to happen like this. Having taken the torturous decision to leave Arsenal for a new challenge at Real Madrid, he hoped the exit would be clean and swift.

Ideally, Real president Florentino Perez would enter a £30million bid for his services, Vieira would convince Arsene Wenger that it was best for them to part company, and Arsenal would agree that such a sum represented fair value for a 28-year-old who felt he had done all he could in the English game.

Instead, Madrid are attempting to put the squeeze on Vieira and Arsenal by refusing to make a serious offer for a defensive midfielder coveted by every coach in the world.

The pressure Vieira is feeling was evident when a journalist from Spanish daily paper Marca managed to ask Vieira about his future in a hotel lobby, the Press having been exc luded from a training session here.

'I am sorry,' said Vieira. 'I cannot speak. This is not the right moment. I cannot talk about Real Madrid. Leave me. Don't do this.'

Perez purchases players with an eye on the bottom line and he believes he can get Vieira at a bargain price.

In Real's ideal world, Vieira would talk publicly of his desire to leave Arsenal and hand in a transfer request, forcing the London club to sell cheaply.

Vieira has three options: wait for Real to make a serious offer, declare his intention to leave or let Wenger and team-mates convince him to stay.

Vieira and Wenger discussed the issue over the weekend without reaching a conclusion. For the time being they carry on with an increasingly irritated Wenger attempting to shield captain and team.

Asked if it would not be easier for everyone if Vieira were to commit himself to Arsenal, Wenger said: 'Maybe. But if you want to come out every day and deny what is written you have a big job to do. I believe we have to concentrate on our jobs, and our job is to practise and play and prepare. It's difficult every day to deny what is not to deny.

'The speculation exists, but if it's not about him it will be about somebody else. I don't know who in the Press wants all our players to go every year. But at the end we always start with the same players. No team have been as stable as us in the last five years.'

Wenger wants that stability to continue, though he will add Hatem Trabelsi to his squad if problems with the Ajax right back's demands can be resolved. But the manager is 'not interested' in potential Vieira replacement Nuno Maniche.

Wenger said: 'I speak to a few agents, but that doesn't always mean I want to buy the players. I rate him, but at the moment we are complete in the middle of the park with enough, if not too many.'

New coach Jose Antonio Camacho made it clear this weekend that the Spaniards are content to play the long game for Vieira. 'I'm prepared to wait until the very last day of the transfer window to sign the player I want,' he said.

And he is confident the result of that long game will be Real victory.

Luis Figo, whose agent Luis Vicente is acting on behalf of Real in talks with Vieira's advisers, has told team-mates that a deal - at just £21m - is nearing completion and the Frenchman will be at the Bernabeu before the end of the summer.

The Arsenal captain arrived at their Austrian training camp on Saturday, having been whisked straight from Graz Airport to the team hotel in the spa town of Bad Waltersdorf.

He was kept away from the Press again when Wenger instructed him not to attend the 2-1 friendly win over Graz AK that evening, in which Dennis Bergkamp and Robin van Persie scored.