The crux of this discussion was those thinking it's incredulous that Bellingham, at 16, would turn down an offer of £20m+ from Manchester United, but as you've pointed out, this is moving into category all-out elite talent to even be priced like that at such an age (same as Cherki at Lyon) and how rare these kind of moves occur.
I think the usual precedent is to tap up kids from academies and then pay the tribunal fee, but this level of talent supersedes that beings as the handlers are in no rush, not fearful of a single club dropping interest and are prepared to do right by the club he is playing for, thus having him sign professional forms there so they get a transfer fee.
If I'm not mistaken, Bellingham and Cherki are players that mark us venturing into a new area of the market, the one Real Madrid have been snapping up the very best touted talent from (Ødegaard, Vinicius, Rodrygo etc.) these past few years.
It's a more challenging market because concrete, tangible offers at a professional level are being put down and more than just navigation through an academy to sell to the player and handlers.
So to come full circle, whether we can attract talent in this particular bracket, really remains to be seen, but it won't be the shock some are making out if we can't.
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