awooga83 Vini JR and Alavere purely speculative as we have no idea what we could afford or would have put up so it's not really a solid example of anything. Both the players were highly unlikely to come so it looks all a bit of smoke and mirrors.
By "speculative" do you mean that we supporters don't know what the club was willing to bid? or that the club was hoping but didn't know that they would be willing to come?
The first is true only in the most trivial sense. We don't know what the club's limit was. But the reporting (and I'm distinguishing between reporting and rumor-mongering) makes it clear that we had significantly enough detailed discussions with Roc Nation to know what an appropriate offer would be in the case that they didn't get the concessions from Madrid they were looking for. And had those concessions not been made, Madrid would have become motivated sellers pretty quickly. I think pretty much the same is probably true for Alvarez - Atleti would pretty clearly like to sell him to us, and the personal issue is more Spain vs England etc rather than money.
As for the club not knowing whether the player will come, isn't that pretty much always the case when we're looking at a top tier player who is already at a top tier club? This is the difference between Vini or Alvarez - who are pretty much guaranteed starters at the two Madrid clubs - and Barcola, on the one hand, who wants to leave PSG because he doesn't start enough, and ... well, I'm not sure who the transformative player who is at a mid-level club is. Certainly not Morgan Rogers.
I think the club's approach to the forward market this summer has been eminently sensible, whether we end up with a signing in the last few days or not.
