Disproportionately high transfer fee, but with a key player and a summer target in mind, opinion on PSV:

The Eindhovens Dagblad reported Sunday evening that PSV and NEC were in talks over Japanese playmaker Kodai Sano, but that to date there has been no breakthrough in the negotiations. The negotiations have now stalled, the regional newspaper reports.

PSV has pulled the plug on its negotiations with NEC this weekend, and that is more than justified. The Nijmegen club is disproportionately high up in the tree for star player Kodai Sano, who managed to stand out clearly last season but at the same time didn’t exactly play with the roof on fire.

It is actually quite simple to call it. The club management finds 18 million euros for the Japanese player who is not an international from his country 'not realistic'. And so negotiations have been stopped between the two clubs, but for how long, because something seems to be in the air.

PSV has at least made it known to NEC that, at the moment, they have pulled out for Kodai Sano. The willingness, according to Eindhovens Dagblad, on the PSV side can certainly be called great, but NEC simply demands too high an amount for the Japanese player, who once again emphasizes that he is not a Japan A-international.

As many as eighteen million euros plus bonuses does the club from Nijmegen wish to receive for Sano, with its financial backer behind it. PSV would, in fact, find eighteen million 'not realistic', and the club management, as mentioned, has taken a more than justified position on that. Given earlier multi-million transfers, a transfer fee of fourteen to fifteen million seems to be the maximum for PSV.

NEC at least thinks it is realistic to ask for this kind of amounts. Hoffenheim seemed recently to be about to strengthen their squad with Sano, but that deal fell through at the last moment. Still, it does seem that Sano has adjusted his opinion and feelings about a future at PSV, because where the Japanese player last week still said that the target was not PSV, change has indeed come over the past few days. Sano would now be open to a transfer to PSV, whereas until last week the target was precisely the abroad. Things can change...More later.