I don't think Ashley will sanction a deal with one player for £15 million, they are in a similar situation to us in that we need to buy 3-4 first teamers and £15m will be a large chunk of that budget. Our approach as far as I know was tentative and once we knew the starting price we moved on.
If he does go there then they have a decent player and yes it will be a shame we didn't take it further but I just can't see us spending anywhere near that on one player. If we can get Lombaerts and Lens for that combined then the board will see this as a much better deal and we can then look to another midfield target with whatever budget they have. We obviously have a figure and 4-5 slots to fill. If/when we get these two over the line I think we will see further bids for some quality midfielders, hopefully somebody like Clasie or if not I can see us trying for Van Ginkel to fill that position and save the money for now.
Matthews - 2m
Coates - 2m
Lens - 9m
Lombaerts - 6m
Clasie - 8m
That's 27m on 5 players, 3 of which will be guaranteed starters. We can then look to bring in a couple of loans to fill the gaps.