Negotiations (and the pace of them) obviously strongly depend on a number of factors:
- size of budget: if we had lots of cash we probably could make bids sooner but it seems like a lot of our transfers will be highly dependent on each other (e.g., one may preclude the other happening). So it's possible that we were waiting on other deals before deciding we could increase our bid
- difference in valuations: when clubs are far apart in valuations, it's probably a general tactic to seem unwilling/unlikely to put in another offer. Say for example you bid £25m on a player, but the other club wants £50m. You are prepared to go higher but nowhere near the £50m mark. If you decided 24-48 hours later to increase your bid to say £32m, then you come across as keen and likely the selling club will figure you'd probably go higher. If you waited two weeks and made it seem like you were looking at other targets, then the selling club might decide they need to lower their valuation closer to yours. The closer the two clubs are in valuation, the quicker the renewed bids will come in (e.g., from the sounds of it, it seems like we'll be making a third bid for Tierney pretty shortly because now we are basically at the agreed valuation, just need to sort out more minor aspects of the deal).
- time left in the window: when you have weeks to go, both clubs will likely be reluctant to budge on their valuations. The buying club will wait for the selling club to lower. The selling club will wait for the buying club to go higher and/or another club to enter the mix. As the window draws nearer, these options begin to dwindle. The buying club may miss out on their player (or alternative) so begin to accept higher costs. The selling club may be stuck with a player who wants out and/or may be worth less in 6-12 months because their contract will be shorter. Suddenly they may be more compromising on their valuation
In general, deals aren't too difficult in themselves to do. The difficulty is ensuring you aren't ripped off. Clubs that have infinite resources and care less about those things will probably conclude deals more quickly than us.
Edit: I'd also add that we should also be very careful about concluding what happens in our transfer business. Whilst some sources might be reliable about our bids, the truth is we don't really know how many bids we've made for Saliba/Tierney, how many discussions we've had with those clubs, or precisely when those bids went in.
