You know readers, something dawned on me the other day when Pharrell Bell was flicking through the newspaper (the sports section, obviously: who wants to read about yet another war in some far-away country?).

I suddenly realised that looking in from the outside, you fans must be absolutely baffled about how managers come up with the unknown players they sign from foreign leagues.

Some of the names just seem to be completely plucked out of the air, completely at random.

Hulking defenders with greasy black mullets, signed from some irrelevant club in Central America; scrawny little South American wingers with seven names (shortened to four letters); towering African midfielders brought in from some Belgian club's reserve team.

Obviously, nine out of ten will turn out to be crap or homesick or just plain mental - but you guys must still be wondering how and why they arrived in the first place.

It must be down to some massive scouting network, right? Managers must have scouts in all corners of the globe, yeah?

You guys probably think that every manager has got a trusted former team-mate sat high in the stands of some crumbling stadium on the edge of an Ecuadorian mountain, scribbling down notes as he watches a meaningless mid-table clash between Universidad de Arsenal and Sporting Club Young Boys?

Well, sorry guys - but that's bulls***. You really think that managers are that dedicated and thorough? That they really do that much homework on every player they sign? Wrong.

Think that, and you're forgetting one thing - all managers are ex-footballers themselves, and footballers are mostly reckless, impulsive and a little bit lazy.

If a manager hears 30,000 fans screaming that the club needs a new striker, do you really think he's got the patience to get on the phone to all his scouts, tell them exactly what he needs, wait eight weeks for them to get back to him, and then spend another week reading through file after file after file?

Well, he hasn't. That manager is just like you and me, and every schoolkid in the world - he hates homework, and he's prepared to cheat and bluff and take shortcuts to get the job done.

I'll you in on a little secret. When I was a youngster at Leeds, I became palls with this rum old-timer at the end of his career. Our careers have since gone our separate ways, obviously. I'm now a top Premier League star earning £25k-a-week, and he, on the other hand, is the gaffer at a crappy little lower-league club.

At his (fourth) wedding a few weeks ago, he has a few too many whisky-macs and lets slip to me how he decides what players he's going to sign: his football management game on his laptop!

He says all the top managers are at it. They just search through the players in the game and pick out the ones that look like they have got the best stats.

Even better, if a manager finds someone he likes the look of, he can sign the player for the club in the game to test him out. Then, if he is actually decent, and fits into the 4-4-2 formation, then he can be fairly confident he's going to be a worthwhile signing in real life.

Simple as that. It saves a whole lot of time and money sending scouts halfway across the world on wild goose chases, looking for players that might not even exist. And those management games are fairly sophisticated, they don't get much wrong.

If a player has got decent stats in the game, more often than not he turns out to be pretty good in real life too. You're after a cheap midfielder with a bit of creativity, or a promising young defender - those games will help you find him

Obviously, there is the odd exception. These games aren't perfect. I mean, I know pace isn't my strong point but 4/20 isn't exactly fair. And as a defensive midfielder, I would have thought it was obvious that my tackling (9/20) and positioning (7/20) would be higher.

And I don't think my gaffer would have been prepared to offer me £25k-a-week if my determination was really only 3/20 and my passing ability 4/20.

Not that I'm bothered. It's probably just some glitch in the game, or the researchers might have been watching another player when they were noting my stats.

It doesn't bother me at all. As if I'd care about that. I'm sure it's just a mistake. Probably a work experience kid inputting the data and he couldn't understand the programme. Dumb-ass kid.

Obviously, I'm not fussed what those games say about me. Like I said, they are pretty good, but they're far from perfect.