Yeah £20m is a piss take. Michael Keane went for £25m rising to £30m. Tyrone Mings went for £20 rising to £25m when he wasn't even deemed good enough for Bournemouth. An £18m bid wasn't enough to buy a 30 year-old Jonny Evans a couple of seasons ago. Keiron Trippier went for £20m to Atletico Madrid. These are all home grown players and the English ones are all behind Stones in the England pecking order. He's still only 26, which means a club could easily get 8-10 years out of him. And obviously the evidence is all right there in the newspaper articles saying what a bargain it would be for West Ham or Arsenal to get him for that price. The whole point of us buying younger players like Stones when we were building the team was that they would still have some resale value if it didn't work out.
But it's all part of a wider trend of us failing to get money for our best assets. Sure, we sometimes get quite a good wad for one of our youth products, but how do we get into a situation where we're selling Sane for almost the same amount as we paid for him? How are we losing £25-30m on John Stones? Even when other clubs intend to sell a player, they still seem to be able to convince the player to sign a new contract so that they get a decent fee. Maybe that's part of the strategy. We allow players to leave fairly easily in the hope that it makes us a more attractive prospect for future signings. But presumably in terms of FFP, getting a decent fee counts towards our balance?
