Has any owner of a club come out ever and announced a price for a player? What would be the advantage given you are limiting yourself?
There have been reports since at least the second week of May, via Jacque Talbot, who I have no clue about in terms of his connections, that it would take ‘at least £50m’ to get the deal done. It’s easy enough to argue that this is done random online personality ago has as much value as me as to Soton’s price, but it’s absolutely not out of the realm of possibility that a handful of connected journalists have been leaked a figure as a negotiation tactic for a player they are looking to sell while the value is high.
Pricing and negotiation are a matter of circumstance and style. Not all estate agents follow the same strategy when selling houses, why should football clubs?
Brighton are yet to actually sell Moses, and have most likely picked a price point based off on a FU to Chelsea’s approach last winter where they tried to push Brighton into selling when they had already said they were not going to. Chelsea have also shown little regard up to now of paying more sensible fees.
Arsenal are flush with cash this window and really wanted Rice at all costs, probably wanting to avoid losing him to Chelsea or anyone else?
As for the day one thing, as @Rab says we don’t really know for certain what Southampton have been asking for, only what we hear or read from others. Clubs often drop the asking price in negotiations or at least agree to more favourable structures - which the club won’t really know if it is possible or not without asking for a deal at the lower price in the first place. In which case the bids are meant to draw out counter offers - which it isn’t clear in this case whether Southampton are making.
£45m is a significant move up from the £37m deal first mooted, especially as it is the base price that has increased not simply tacking on add ons that may never get hit, that in most cases would have probably led to a deal being agreed by most sellers.
Worth remembering that a £50m deal would make Lavia our 6th most expensive signing. It’s not peanuts.
I’m usually on the FSG glass half full side, but this seems ridiculous. We spent £5m on Arthur’s loan that was clearly destined to fail, but quibbling over the same amount now, potentially for our DM for the next decade
We could be squabbling over a lot more. Not all 45m or 50m bids are equal.
Journalists love to oversimplify things and come up with XY figure so they can write stories or counter stories and still appear right… but things are never that simple when add-ons and payment terms are considered.
It’s a load of BS and even a lot of the stories thrown around after a signing is completed are generally incorrect too.
