If Jeremy Ngakia and his agent decide there are better options available elsewhere then that's their right. I have no problem with it - I might do the same. Contracts are negotiated all the time and if there isn't agreement then they won't be agreed. There's nothing odd about it.

The club gave Oxford a contract they clearly regretted, I never understood why the player was blamed for that. They gave Quina a contract to get him to leave Chelsea and then regretted it - again the player got blamed. These were the club's decisions, not the players.

Blaming players for what are completely normal negotiations, often undertaken by agents looking to maximise the player's earnings, is absurd to me. If the club's offers are uncompetitive they will lose out - there's no scandal there, it's simply the truth.

The strategic error the club seems to be making is to be constantly trying to financially squeeze their biggest asset (the academy) while constantly overpaying for its weakest area (mercenary senior talent). These academy wages are paltry compared to the senior players.

A counter-argument I suppose is Rice's success. But I believe (afaik) that Rice made very sub-optimal contract decisions to his own financial detriment. I applaud his loyalty but the club exploited it imo. Very few players will be as understanding or arguably as naive.

All that said, should the club pay Ngakia's rumoured £20k a week 'demands'? Maybe not, they should negotiate that down and I'm sure they will try to. If I was the agent it seems sensible to demand a higher deal then settle at a compromise figure. Seems routine to me.

What I wouldn't do as the club (I don't know if they did or not) is leak those demands to try to incite fan anger to pressure/blame an academy player. This would be underhand, counter-productive, and poisons the well. Every academy player likely trusts the club less as a result.