I'm not advocating for Roma. Nor for Smalling, all I say I could understand why one prospect looks better than the other.
I am sure we could just reject Roma's bid, but surely there's some gentlemen's agreement between us and Chris.
Ultimately we want him out and we want someone else to be paying his wages and collect a decent fee, but it's really hard to force a player to a certain club.
You could break the good relation between the club and the player and he could just turn around and say: "If you want me out - pay up my contract. You won't let me go to Roma, so I'll stay here, play golf and collect my wages", which is definitely not what I want.