I’m arguing what I’ve been arguing from the beginning, that is that the bolded part of your post above makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. The transfer guys could limit further spending much easier by simply telling the manager that this player is not available and moving on to a cheaper player. It would also mean a massive saving in wages.
The manager himself is saying that he’s waiting until the right player becomes available, so either the manager is being honest and he is the one waiting or he is towing some weird party line to help justify limiting spending.
In short it makes absolutely no sense what you were claiming.
An individual can think that spending $100 for a nice shirt is worthwhile, they're willing to spend $100 but for whatever reason cannot purchase the shirt. They may not be willing to spend $30 for a shirt they don't like as much. Assuming they have the means, they should still probably spend that $30 as they are currently topless and there's a fecking blizzard outside. That's the current predicament with our midfield. Just because they are willing to spend whatever the cost is for FDJ, doesn't make it any less a disappointment if assuming that deal falls through, they don't spend whatever is required to pursue alternative options.
Also your hypothetical makes no sense, you don't know who we would end up signing as an alternative in your make belief scenario, nor how much they would cost. For all you know, clubs know we are now desperate to strengthen our midfield, with less time in the window for clubs to find replacements, resulting in them milking us.
Once again -
if, they do spend whatever is necessary then yes, awesome, good stuff Murtough. Assuming they don't though, because as they've leaked throughout this window in the past, they need a very specific player to improve the midfield and don't end up signing anyone, then no, I would place that blame on the board because some people on the CAF would probably improve our midfield, let alone professional footballers.