Chelsea's dramatic late move for Pedro shows how hard it is to get a deal over the line these days.

Manchester United thought an agreement with Barcelona was inevitable but until the player puts pen to paper, you can never be sure.

Chelsea have form for this. It looks similar to Willian going to Tottenham in 2013. That deal looked done and dusted but then suddenly he turns up at Stamford Bridge.

There’s nothing United boss Louis van Gaal could do to stop Cesc Fabregas or whoever phoning up Pedro and trying to change his mind. And equally, as a manager, you ask your players to make that call and help you out. That happens all the time and you’d be naïve to think otherwise.

You’d say: “Cesc, give him a buzz, tell him how good the club is and what it would do for his career.” Fabregas and Pedro are both Spain internationals and it makes sense for Chelsea to use their friendship to swing the deal their way.

United could feel aggrieved and the agent may have complicated things. You used to have managers speaking to each other directly or chief executives talking exclusively but what happens so often now is the agent will agree a deal with you and then shop around. He’ll arrange something with one club then phone others to see if they are interested. Then he’ll be telling the player what the deal is at one, then another.

You can’t stop agents doing it. They will be looking to see a) where the player will get the best deal and b) where the agent can earn the most money. Let’s be honest, if you are an agent and one club offers you £1million to bring the player to them and another club £2m, you will follow the money.

There are a lot of gullible players who listen to what the agent tells them which might not actually be in the best interest of their career. I’m not saying that’s what happened with Pedro but it is an increasing complication of trying to get a deal done.

Like in every walk of life, there are good ones and bad ones but I’ve had agents come to me and say ‘Harry, I’ve been offered this amount to take the player there, unless you match it, he won’t sign for you.’ And you think ‘Well, hang on, where does the player want to go? Nobody mentioned that.’

If you were a player and the agent said he was getting a third of the money to go to one club but you really wanted to play for another team, then you only have yourself to blame if you don’t stand up to them and do what’s best for you.

And as a manager, you would then think if the player isn’t strong enough to do that, do you really want them anyway? If they haven’t got the strength of character to stand up for themselves, you might be better off without them.

Part of the problem is nothing is done in secret any more. Clubs have people operating everywhere and having a deal hijacked is nothing new.

One of the greatest examples I had was back in 1990 when manager of Bournemouth and I was going to sign Ian Woan from non-League Runcorn. I watched him twice in midweek — freezing cold nights — and we loved him. I met his dad, who was an ex-professional at Aldershot.

We did a deal with Runcorn to buy Ian and he was supposed to come down on the Tuesday to sign. His dad, Alan, phoned me and said: “I am working today so I can’t make it down. Can we come down in the morning? I really want to be there when my boy signs his first professional contract.”

Ian’s dad didn’t really need to be there but I agreed. That night it was on Teletext that Woan was coming down to Bournemouth to sign for £40,000. Brian Clough was in his office with two of his backroom staff, Alan Hill and Ron Fenton, and he saw it on the television.

Cloughie said: “Bournemouth have a good record in signing non-League players. Who’s this Ian Woan?” None of them had any idea but Ron knew the Runcorn manager and he phoned him to ask if the deal was done.

They were told it was happening the next day for £40,000. Cloughie immediately offered £80,000, got him down that night and signed him. I got a call at 11.30pm saying we’d missed out.

I lost a player to Teletext, so imagine how hard it is to keep a deal quiet now with 24-rolling news, social media and agents talking to journalists all the time! What can you do?

The funny thing is Mourinho has played down signing another winger recently. I don’t know who does the transfers at Chelsea — and I wouldn’t want to suggest he has no say at all — but he hasn’t fancied the last few wingers who have come in.

Andre Schurrle, Mohamed Salah and Juan Cuadrado have all joined the club, had only a few chances and made no real impact at all.

I don’t know if it is a position someone other than Mourinho thinks they need to strengthen but he’s now got to make Pedro fit in after seemingly not being interested at all a few days ago.

United need a striker more than a winger so I don’t think Pedro will be a terrible loss. They are not short of wide men. They have options. But with time running out in the window, an agent’s power is only going to get stronger because clubs get desperate. And that can make getting a deal done even harder.

Clubs face striking problem

Everybody is looking for a top-class striker — but where do you find them?

Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham all need a top striker — but what are the options?

Arsenal want Karim Benzema but Real Madrid surely aren’t going to sell him. Edinson Cavani is a great talent but he will most likely cost about £50 million.

Robert Lewandowski looks settled at Bayern Munich.

Barcelona would never sell Luis Suarez and Sergio Aguero is tied down at Manchester City. Strikers cost more than other players so the stakes are higher when you take a punt on whether they can perform in the Premier League.

Spurs paid all that money for Roberto Soldado and it never worked out.

City signed Alvaro Negredo a couple of seasons ago — he looked like the answer and then all of a sudden he disappeared off the face of the Earth.

It is all a gamble and the lack of reliable options is only driving prices — and the risks — even higher.