The only way I personally judge a potential player signing for us is - will this player add something to the squad to make us improve? The answer to this is absolutely yes.
Who gives a flying duck about how much we pay, if it adds something to an incredible squad then that’s fine by me.
Someone like maddison I don’t think would have added anything, but Paqueta is an absolute gem of a player and I’d say is fairly unique within our squad. He is a tenacious workhorse, who has a wand for a left foot and is great at slipping the ball through (as the conference final showed). In the cm role as one of the 8s he’d look great as one of the 2 ahead of Rodri plus I’ve seen him play as an inverted rw too.
He’s young, left footed, versatile, used to premiership football, seemingly a good character, fits a hole left in the squad and wants to come and to top it off is a starter for Brazil.
Fingers crossed this gets done!