Too bad he was available for 20 or 25m last summer. I think that’s what @GC-Maniac is talking about. We have to have a smart proactive recruitment policy, not be like “oh wow Grealish is the best #8 in the PL now, here’s 100m gimme”. Once again we arent United.
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Technically, Ake was the most expensive one at £41m as Bournemouth got relegated before he left.
Moussa Sissoko in a similar situation for £32m.
If we are talking about players who were playing in the Championship the season before they left that’s Ollie Watkins at £28m.
Take into account, Brentford would’ve charged far more for him and Benrahma if they didn’t miss promotion for a moron keeper we’re allegedly interested in. 
Pretty much. If we do that, we’ll spent the entire summer chasing him, forget our other needs, concede we won’t buy him in the end and pick someone from the scraps that are available, for whom we’ll have to overpay late in the window.
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And that rings a bell for me in that Villa missed out on promotion one season in the Championship, didn’t they? Play-off final defeat? I can remember something along those lines and it being John Terry’s final playing game (ha! Dumb twat deserved it)
Point being, at that point, bid for Grealish. He would have been a punt at that stage of his career. You had pundits (Merse) saying he was more interested in his hair. This is how low opinion was of him. There wasn’t much to suggest he’d be as good as he is now (apart from the young English talent drivel that the media use to stoke the transfer fires)
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Yeah, that was against Fulham wasn’t it? I remember Spurs were chasing him all window but ended up walking away in the end. I think they were negotiating over a transfer fee of around £25m.
What an absolute steal he was gonna be for them.
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The only way we could afford Grealish is if we offered them 50m and a couple of our players in return, in positions they need filling.
As usual, every selling club knows how desperate we are so they’ll just put the price up.
Our biggest problem is attracting players.
What decent player would come to a club managed by Arteta?
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Yeah I think “technically” he is the most expensive Championship player. Think, including fees etc, he cost Villa £33m!
Next one after him is probably Jarrod Bowen.
I don’t think he was valued that low. This was only in 2018. Spurs bid £25m for him that summer and the offer was turned down and described as insulting. Obviously Spurs (or us or anyone) could have got him then for less than we could now, but he would still have cost a fair bit. He was still rated.
Didn’t Spurs walk away because there was a change in management at Villa and that made negotiations drag? I thought the deal was gonna happen if they persisted and maybe pushed the fee to 30m?
Partey came. Aouar was going to come until we refused to pay his brother a big fee at the last minute. Odegaard at least seems interested.
Money talks in the end and players are also aware of a club’s size when thinking about where they might move. I have no illusions that Grealish would choose us over a bigger or wealthier club but I absolutely think he’d come here if his only other option was staying at Villa.
But I agree with you that sadly we probably can’t afford him so it’s all hypothetical.
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Yeah that sounds familiar, he definitely was getable. He didn’t have the greatest season that year, but he wasn’t a no mark, he was still on a lot of team’s radars. His wild child days were pretty much done by then.
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If I recall, Villa were in bad shape financially and needed to sell but wanted 25m and Levy played hardball. So negotiations dragged on all summer then Villa got new investors so they didn’t need to sell so badly and Levy ended up offering 35m on deadline day only for it to get turned down!
He fucked it up pretty badly.
That episode plus turning down Bruno and buying Lo Celso instead because he was a bit cheaper are too great what ifs with Spurs recently. Imagine if they got them both.
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Pretty much. Very few players are now moving out of ambition. Money, location and potential exposure come before that now.
Arsenal can offer big contracts, London lifestyle and have a massive reach worldwide.
It’s all about being opportunistic nowadays and having the money to pay off clubs. It’s how Man Utd had a free run at Sancho, Chelsea at Havertz and us at Aouar and Partey last summer.
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The thing is you end up getting players with no ambition who want an easy life.
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Welcome to 2021.
Imagine Kane, Son, Grealish and Fernandes in the same team?
They’d carry this husk of Jose to the title, thank God Levy messed that up.
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I’d be more sure of this if we hadn’t had that photo leaked recently 
We should start acting like a big club if we want to get back to the top. We could get Grealish if we really wanted to.
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Cunt should be honoured to play with ESR and Saka.
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He will. . .for England.