We can't afford to pay £120k a week wages. It's only because there was no loan fee and the sale of players has made money available to cover the costs. Presumably Everton officials would have preferred to be paying a lower amount - otherwise the deal would have been made earlier on the deadline day. Personally, I think that both clubs were haggling to get a good deal for themselves and as it got closer to 11pm, Everton relented. At around 10pm, there were no deals yet done, yet Dave Whelan was on the radio telling everyone that the McCarthy deal was off, adding to the pressure and the Lukaku deal was also done late at night.
I mentioned it yesterday, the money brought in from the sale of Fellaini and Anichebe was enough to cover the cost of the transfer fees for Kone, Robles, McCarthy and there was enough left over to pay the wages for one year of Barry and Lukaku. There was also a bit of 'surplus' available to spend in the summer with wages as Neville, Hitzelsperger and Mucha being freed up. Now that Fellaini an Anichebe have been moved on, the total wages of our non-loanee players is likely to be lower than it was last year. I suspect that should Baines get a new contract, his wage increase will come from the wage budget that was previously allocated to Fellaini.