I agree with Jim. It's not the value of the player (still more development project than ready ever present) so much as the opportunity cost, when we need substantial spend elsewhere.
He was Spurs player of the season the year before last, a first choice central midfielder for Sweden, nearly 80 appearances for Spurs across Premier League, Champions League and europa league. Strong and he kicks well. He's substantially ahead of where Anderson and Gibbs-White were when he signed him, and even if he costs 50m that is less than half the price we sold Anderson for. It makes sense to me and I think is lower risk and likely to be more match ready than a midfielder who has not played in the premier league, but I think with Newcastle in and them having missed out on Manzambi they will probably beat us to this one.
He just played a reasonably significant role for his country at the WC. While he surely has development still to do - he's only 20 - he's also ready to play in the Premier League. I don't know if he's worth 50M, but I don't think you're going to see substantial spend elsewhere either given all of the noise from the regular talking heads has been that the club expected to sell Anderson, move on some peripheral players e.g. Silva, and make 3-4 signings. So far we're on track for them to be correct.
It seems likely we will buy a centre-half given Glasner's liking for playing three at the back, and despite the expected return of Kalimuendo we probably need a striker given Wood's age and the risk of another injury like last year, but unless you want Yatesy starting every week we probably have to prioritize filling the Anderson-sized hole.
If Newcastle are seriously in for him, it’s probably moot. He’s probably going to prefer to go there.. and Spurs may be more inclined to do business with them after the events of last summer.
Seems like he might be Romano announced he has changed agent to a bigger outfit. The interpretation seems to be you only change agent if looking for a move.