Coeus
Striker
How did you arrive at that assumption? Given that there's plenty of evidence of many football clubs lowballing and taking academy products for granted due to their personal connection to the club, I fail to see how the likeliest assumption is that he was caught up in his own hype.
We had the 7th lowest wage bill in the championship according to the most recent accounts, I doubt we managed that without being pretty thrifty with contract offers and renewals.
We made him captain, and Speakman said contract talks were ongoing. He's homegrown at a club that wants to nuture that, with those two things in mind, I don't think it's a stretch to suggest we will have made him our top earner.
But at the time, there was speculation that Premier League teams wanted him, and we had just been a shit show, again, not a stretch to think he may have wanted to see where the land lies.