It's also strange that they have apparently accepted an offer 2.5mil(ish) less than that.
Could it be a case of knowing there is no point in having an unhappy player?
Would also make sense of it coming 'out' so that they can drive the price up if other clubs reall are interested.
what i like about this is the calibre of clubs we are competing with. everton, fulham, west brom - all established premier league clubs - this is where we are trying to position the club. they all know how to make a canny move in the transfer market and so does chris hughton.
in the same article on the pink un about toivanon, or however you spell it, they mention hull have opened talks to sign curtis davies. It looks likely we can cross him off the list, although i don't think we are interested now.
this is guess work, but i wonder whether the form of ryan bennett changed hughton's mind about davies? i still personally think we need another centre half but we do have martin and possibly ayala (not sure what's going on with him) who can be fourth centre back. like i say, pure guess work but it would make sense and save the club about £3-4m on a player who would strengthen the squad, certainly, but not necessarily strengthen the first team
I personally think a centre back is not top priority Russ is better than we'd get for around £3m anyway and Ryan Bennett looked class at the end of the season. Just filling a squad place

Not much more I can add.