You are not missing anything, I'm agreeing with you and summarising why we ended up in this situation.
I am just pointing out the folly of always leaving our transfers until the last few hours (to "grab a bargain") at which point we end up with a poor negotiating stance as we are clearly desperate. Hopefully he makes the difference for us to win the league. But we all know that our board will then refuse to sanction buying him when we could have gotten him for half the asking price before we showcased his talents.