My understanding, and I've not ploughed through this thread, was that we'd scouted him for quite a while and agreed a fee with Benfica, but once they finished 3rd and qualified for the CL, that shifted the narrative and we couldn't agree Terms with the player, being as (unsurprisingly) he fancied a crack at CL football rather than signing up for a relegation scrap in the PL. Can't blame him for that. As someone else mentioned, sometimes the stars need to align for a deal to go through, but with that extra season in Portugal he has obviously now become WAY beyond our means. Thats not a failure on BHA's part, its just how things panned out.
A pity, but we move on.
They finished third with a 12 point margin and haven't finished below 3rd place for 15 years, not really sure where this "shift of narrative" would have come from.