Or they're gambling that he might actually develop into attractive-prospect with regular game-time (and comparatively lower standard of opposition overall), get sold for 20m+ and we get 50% or whatever.
Still think ETH should have been giving him 15 minutes here and there when we were clear in games, if no other reason than to drive the selling price up. Iqbal looked pretty composed in pre-season, if nothing else, so even failure to do 'stupid things', plus some first-team experience, gets us better selling price.