Wasn't the extension for our loan of Harry Kane to Norwich? Or at least that's what Norwich said.
If we were genuinely that close to Moutinho, why are we so far away from him now? He hasn't even made a single comment in the press like last time - in fact, he's looked pretty damn happy at Porto all winter. More relevantly, where is the money for a 22m+ transfer going to come from, bearing in mind that our wages have increased since the last time we were known to be big hitters in the market, and that we have a stadium and shiny new training center to pay for (considering Lewis is about as sugardaddy as I am)? (Just for a rough estimate - does anyone have the wage bill starting this season?) If we genuinely have a grand warchest of funds, why have we become so obsessed with favorable contract situations (Pienaar, Saha, Nelsen, Holtby, Dempsey and Dembele's buyout clauses, Ade's wrangling, and now Diame, Son, and Hooper)? Maybe Levy doesn't want to give money to Redknapp, but it's our transfer committee that's been making most of our signings in the last four years and we always knew HR was only a temporary thing, so if the funds are there, why not buy the young prospects for the future anyways?
Though I do think that the new TV deal means that if there was ever a time to spend, it's now (and that's why this window is so difficult - all the agents are advising their players to wait for the summer when the market inflates).
Personally, I think Levy has done a very, very good job of getting us so close to the top tier when you look at what we are competing against financially. It was not very long ago at all that we couldn't even dream of the likes of Modric or VDV or Lloris playing for us, or out-competing Liverpool and sometimes even Arse for a signature. It is possible, I think, to fund a Moutinho and/or Willian if we stop buying so many squad players, since their wages and fees accumulate to a rather sizable total, but it is not at all easy to get rid of the likes of Hudd, Jenas, Bentley, Gomes et al - contracts go both ways! So I don't want to say that Levy is some sort of shady asshole of a chairman out to pull the wool over the eyes of poor AVB, because he works with some seriously constrained circumstances that AVB ought to have understood well beforehand. But I do believe, very roughly, JJetset's version of events re: Moutinho, bearing in mind that every ITK's sources have their own bias, because he does have a very good track record and because it fits with my own understanding of our financial situation and the "real" backroom dealings of large businesses, which never match the public reports.