Couldn't agree more with OP,
Why doesn't anyone who signs any of our players end up paying over the odds , yet the moment we go in for a player his transfer fee and wage demands suddenly go up 50%.
Tell Arsenal ,Spurs, Bayern , Forest and whoever else start the bidding at £15million plus add ons . And if they don't want to pay he stays and sulks in the reserves for us end off
If you're going to play hardball, you need to be being serious and actually being willing to back it up. If we decide to keep hold of him and tell the other sides to shove it if they don't meet out valuation, then we'll need to sell one of Fry, Tav, McNair, etc to raise funds and then need to keep hold of a player who a) doesn't want to be here and b) we don't want. It would simply be empty words, if a bid above £10 mil comes in and no-one else is interested we're going to snap their hands off, whatever anyone says.
Forest will want to sign him and they'll push up the price anyway. If we get £15mil+, great, if we get between £12-£15 it's good business, if we get around £10 then it's disappointing, but better than needing to let a player go who is actually going to contribute next season. We aren't in a position to dictate terms here unless the interest from all the clubs is genuine, and if two or three of Spurs, Bayern, Arsenal, etc are interested, then we're not going to need to go out and say anything, the price will go up naturally. Everyone knows we're going to sell to the highest bidder and anything above £12 mil is a bonus for us really.