That will come down to the state of the target club's finances, the skill of our recruitment team to shape the negotiations (i.e. agreeing personal terms befoe the interclub terms), and our ability to hold our nerve.
Money is tight whilst these financial rules bite, a lot of European clubs are crying blue murder at the lack of PL spending on their star players, and many of them will now be forced into selling their best assets come the summer. It's a game of chicken now - who will blink first?
I expect little, if any inflationary pressures in the summer transfer market, perhaps even deflationary ones will rule the day as clubs scramble to sell.
In the whole of Europe in January an outrageous unheard of players to the total value £1.2 billion went on loan deals, not sales, the sales values were less than a tenth of that.
In the past many European and even British clubs relied on the model of selling to stay liquid; but because of new money flooding in (China, media, Saudi) it could happen, but now is more unlikely - the media deal is now fixed, China is dead as a destination, and the prevailing wisdom is the Saudi PIF will be severely limited going forward.
We are still in a good financial position to strike hard bargains, and (as we've seen) punch above our weight.
