I retract my Ashton point about deadline day specifically. Great research. Perception. > reality
I still think we’ve under negotiated and he was good at negotiation
How often did he sell his best asset 60 days before the transfer window “SLAMMED SHUT”?
Sorry I'm going to come back again as I'm not at work today so have the time to dig!
The majority of sale of "key players" at Bristol City were wrapped up by early August, with 2 to 3 weeks left in the window in his time there, the latest one appears to have been Kodija as referred to above.
Lloyd Kelly to Bournemouth - within 2 weeks of the previous season ending.
Aden Flint to Boro - Late June
Bobby Reid to Cardiff - Late June
Adam Webster to Brighton - first week of August prior to first game
Marlon Pack to Cardiff - 8th August (1 game into season)
Joe Bryan to Fulham - 9th August (1 game into season)
Josh Brownhill went to Burnley late in January in 2019
I can't see that any one would have paid for than £2m for McNally at this point in time based on his 30 appearances in L1. People have pointed to the Matt Clarke fee, but at the point he moved from Pompey to Brighton - he had played almost 150 games across L1 and L2, at pretty much the same age as McNally is now.
We could have played hard ball and asked for a ridiculous fee that would never have been met and then kept an unhappy player around. Once Luke had made it clear he wanted to talk to Burnley, there was no way he was going to be staying with us.
Personally, I'm a lot more in favour of losing a player early than having weeks and weeks of gossip and hearsay (Brannagan last two windows) or losing someone at the last minute (Baptiste/Fosu)