Admittedly only paper talk but I'd heard he was open to a move but the club weren't keen on it happening, and the figure being mentioned (£100m) certainly wasn't a "token amount"
Bernie has also quite clearly wanted to move for a couple of seasons now but the club have effectively prevented it from happening... and we're now left with a player who, for whatever reason, looks a shadow of what he's previously been.
So your notion of the club always respecting the wishes of players doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.