The players we got decent money for sold themselves , didn’t they Dave
Their performances over 18mths , 2 yrs , some individual televised moments (JB scored something beauties on Sky incl the United thunderbolt) , Flints goals, Reid’s goals , Kelley you only had to see warm up to see glaring Rolls Royce potential
I don’t think they were a hard sell and with the market at the time attracted buyers , and fees that I’d suggest any decent negotiator on here may have got , especially when you have the day to day knowledge of the market
I always felt the lavish praise he got for attracting (what were perceived as) decent fees was ott.
Id say the Webster one did stand out due to the size of it and his injury record , but we saw what a player he was , as clearly did Brighton , and credit to them they backed their judgement
I don’t suppose they opened their bidding at £5 m and Ashton dragged them to the eventual £20 m plus
When it came to his arrogance in his strategy , he crashed and didn’t do so well in ‘upselling’ those less high profile , did he.
And let’s not start on buying duffs or at least overspending on mere ‘punts’, both in terms of fees and wages
Ahhhhhhhhh Johnson and Ashton , overseen by JL.........
And even of course we ignored the strategy anyway and had a different attempt at wasting more money by buying the likes of Marley Watkins for £1 million , something I still find incredible