I don't think we know enough to criticizing or praising anyone, Chelsea tried to bring Evertons price down and ended up walking away from a deal didn't they? We could have done the same. We don't even know if a budget has been set or not, it might have had a lot to do with negotiations on other deals... if signing Stones meant we would miss out on other key targets then we might have looked elsewhere for a better price(there's more than Stones out there that will fit the bill they just wont be English), there could be lots of factors at play here and untruths in what's being reported in the press and social media.