Clrnc wrote:jones wrote:Unlikely we really pleaded poverty clubs try to get discounts all the time, even less likely Atletico are dumb enough to believe we are that broke. More likely Atletico were hoping we'd be going for Aouar instead of Partey so they wouldn't have to replace him with Roca who's now gone to Bayern
If AFCBell is to be believed (I mean obviously he knows what's going on), we have always planned to activate his release clause. I doubt we went in for Aouar for fun, so there's only one reason why we are activating it so late instead of at the start of the window.
There's virtually no upside to triggering it early other than having more time to bed him in. You keep negotiating, hoping Atletico will budge at some point and when they you realise they don't you pay the clause. It's not even a particularly high clause and the player hinted several times he wanted to come to us bloke was criminally underpaid. Atletico kept bluffing now they're in public with their pants full of shit of course they'll try and spin it some way.
