It's hard to be sure if that's what happens as we don't sit in the board room, but I think it's clear that NC tries to drive a hard fee - in terms of outgoing and incoming transfers.
I know that we priced Puncheon out of a move, as we wouldn't budge from £1m. No one would meet it, but we wouldn't budge - and we'll never ever, ever, ever get £1m for him now, maybe not even 500k. So what you say may be right in some areas, but I think he's prudent. He doesn't want to put the club into financial trouble so he won't ever spend what we don't have.
I don't believe we are massively loaded, I think we operate a policy of spend what we generate - and we may generate just about enough to tie up Gaston, but possibly not all the fee up front. That's my opinion anyway, may be wrong - but I think in some areas he's entitled to drive a hard bargain as he's looking after this club, but other times he needs to just loosen it slightly.