I get you point, but I disagree a bit.
We have other priorities like buying a "TOP" CB, LB and RW.
I hope we can buy Alderweireld and Sandro to improve our defense, but if we buy another CM (like Dendoncker), we could end up signing a CB just to rotate with our defenders such as Lenglet or someone unknown. For example, I wanted an experienced RB to replace Valencia... someone like Meunier, but we signed Dalot who can be a good singing for the future but maybe not for next season. I would have even prefer to buy Telles for Porto (If Sandro stays at Juve).
My point is... I rather sign quality instead of quantity. If we sign a No.10, I would go for Eriksen (unrealistic) or Fekir (realistic) instead of Talisca. So, next summer we could sign a quality CDM as good as Jorginho, Rodrigo.
That's why I don't care if we just sign Alderweireld, Sandro, Thiago and Griezmann....and wait for next summer to sign other 3 players. If we want to sign 6 or 7 players this transfer window, we could end up with good players (Dalot, Lenglet, Golovin, Talisca, Arnautovic, etc), but not world class players.
You are totally right that next summer players like Neves, Dendoncker, Tierney, among others would cost more. But at least we would be able to see if Tierney is able to play in a better league and the progress of Neves/Dendoncker. Maybe next summer there's a "new Rodri" who would be better sightly better than Dendoncker.
Believe me I would love Toby, Sandro and Sidibe/Meunier but at the same l, I don't think buying a young CM for 10-20 Mill would have massively changed our transfer plans.
But now I feel our transfer plans have changed.
Castles said the same thing in his podcast. We were not expecting a player of the quality of Bale to be available while we were making plans for the summer.
Also I don't believe that Mourinho was playing games with the media when he said we won't be signing any attackers as he has been very open about our transfers.
I feel Dalot could be a part of this change in priorities or re allocation of funds.
Same with Lengelt rumors and there were even whispers of Telles.
Maybe our initial plan was to buy Sidibe + Sandro + Alderweireld for a total of 150 million and sell Darmian + Blind and maybe Shaw for 50 million.
But maybe after Bale's comments we have shifted our focus to Dalot + Lengelt + Telles, all three combined would cost 19+30+30 = 80 million pounds, thus saving 70 million
So even if Madrid want 100 mill Euros (88 million pounds) for Bale, we have almost balanced the books and managed to stay within our budget at the same time filling all the holes in our squad.
Also if it's between Bale and Griezmann for almost the same money, I'm 100% sure Woody and the Board would go for Bale over Griezmann
We have been after him for ages and the marketing potential would be huge, even more than that with Griezzmann. Also I'm sure Adidas would prefer us signing Bale.
If that's the case, I don't know which I would prefer.
Toby + Sandro + Sidibe or Lengelt + Telles + Dalot + Bale/Griezmann.
Nope, I'm sure I prefer the second option.
Sorry for derailing the thread.