the bigger problem is, why didn't we buy maddison when he went from norwich to leicester? they paid like £20m for him.
the time to buy english talent is their first real move. we paid £12m for ox in his first move, and then sold him for £35m. that is good business. he never really fully developed here, but if he had developed, we'd have found a top class player for £12m. instead, we turned a big profit. sure, we spent years trying to develop him, but that is the cost of doing business.
there is relatively little upside in spending £80m on a player like maddison. hes not a world class talent, hes a very good, established PL player. if he was the finishing touch on our ready to compete team, then it would make more sense. but for where we are right now, it would be very risky, imo