I think we are just too nice when it comes to negotiate sell price. If they offer 10m and its really a deal could be made at 20m we accept 10m if player is happy to join than hold out for a fee, play dark arts negotiation tactics etc.
Sane for 45m great example. if Grealish or Kane had 1 year left on his contract for some reason we would still need come up with about 90% of the fees quoted right now.
we do great money by selling these CFG/youth players, but I am pretty sure we missing out on extra revenue on these.
Tosin Adarabioyo for meaningless 2m pounds, he played 30+ games for freshly promoted Fulham last season. if they would sell him now guaranteed 20m fee at least imo.
harrison for 11m when he helped Leeds to get promoted and then helped them for a PL midtable finish and could be a crucial player now for them for years.
yes we are not desperate fr extra money, but then we are very sensitive about agent fees when signing top class talent and walk away from deals if they are 10m than Txiki is prepared to pay. but when we sell we re happy to accept shit ass fees too we are not that sensitive on that side for some reason about financials.
Chelsea, Pool they can get very good fees for their unwanted deadwood and youngsters. And when they sell their top player like Hazard and Coutinho for top money, I wonder how much Barca and Real chokes on those deals now as Hazard is a cheeseburger guy now not an elite player since he left them while Coutinho could not play for mid table clubs these days.
I have had this conversation I don't know how many times. Without knowing the ins and outs you can't possibly know what we could have got or not.
Yes Tosin left for 1.5m but he was on 30k a week and we clearly had no other interest and we do right by the young lads. Chelsea keep players around for years, they have got some lads like Piazon who were around for 8 years before he left, that is just ridiculous.
Txiki is not the only man involved in this process, he ultimately brings the deals to the table and then it gets signed off at the various levels e.g. Soriano and Khaldoon. If we didn't want to pay the 10m in agents fees for X, its not because Txiki is a tight arse, its because the club have decided they don't want to do it (they haven't really done much wrong so I think we need to trust them here!)
I posted this a while back and still relevant;
For every Tosin at 2m there is a Harrison at 15m or Douglas Luiz for 15m which is 30m for about a 10m spend. With all the loan fees Angelino is more like 20m and the same for Harrison. Ihenacho at 25m when he cost us basically nothing. This summer we are looking at potentially north of 60m for players who have never stepped foot on the pitch at the Etihad.
Then consider the service we get out of alot of our players. You cant argue with the value for money with Fernadinho, Kompany, Aguero, Yaya, Zaba, Hart, Clichy, and many more that we kept for practically all of their best years and then let them go.
Hazard and Coutinho went for top money, we probably would have got top money for someone like Aguero as well if we really wanted to. Instead we kept them and we won trophies. As you say both Barca and Real have been burned on those deals and they are going to be very hesitant in the future I think, those transfers were just a perfect storm really. Barca had 200m in the bank so went mental and bought Coutinho and Dembele and Real were off the back of 3 CL trophies in a row, desperate for a galactico and Hazard openly wanted to sign.
We keep our best players and it pays off.