If they value him so highly and expect him to develop to £100m, then bridge the gap with a boosted sell-on. Won’t impact our current amortisation/PSR or bank balance until he leaves. Kicks the can down the road and pushes some of the development risk on to them. If he becomes a superstar, we will have benefitted from having him for 2/3 years, they will get a nice further payment, and we will still turn a massive profit. If he flatlines, our downside is reduced as the % of a lower sale price will mean we give them less.
Not ideal, but in our situation, we need quality, need numbers now, and still need to be slightly wary of spending. We can’t have it all - a world beater, already proven, dirt cheap, massive further growth in value AND wanting to come here not Napoli or bloody Forest.
Some of the names mentioned as alternatives after Fofana clearly politely declined. We have to remember, it’s not a supermarket. We can meet an asking price all we like, but a player can still say they don’t want to come here.