Agreed. As soon as he turned down our contract
That was start off the summer though. At the time we were receiving lowball offers. The options were
1) Sell hamer at lowball price and buy ok replacement/cheaper other players
or
2) Gamble on buying better more expensive replacement/other players in advance and hope someone pays proper price for hamer. If nobody does we have to sell him for low ball offer or he goes on a free next summer, meaning we would be millions out of pocket and in financial hole
or
3) Wait to get best price giving us more to play with for better players but risk that less players would be available and/or other clubs would be in for same smaller pool of players. In the meantime hope that Hamer might have a change of heart and sign new deal
We went for option 3 and still managed to get Ayari in. Probably right call albeit frustrating. Still got cash available for today/Jan/next summer though