At great risk of digging up the same old argument from the summer... he doesn't have to be a guaranteed started from our perspective, as long as he is satisfied with that. If he expects to be a starter in most games, then that could be problematic because a). if we say he won't be a starter then he might not come, or b). if we say he will be a regular starter and he isn't then he will be pissed off very quickly, plus then we will earn a reputation as a club which lies to players to get them in. I'm not saying for a second that the above is necessarily the case, but it could be. Of course any of the following could apply:
- he may be happy to come initially as mostly back-up but intend to force his way into the side
- he may expect there to be sufficient rotation for him to get enough games
- numerous other possible scenarios
The point is that players themselves do of course have agency, and IF he looks at the Romero / MVDV partnership and considers it one of the very best in the EPL that will be hard to break into if there are not enough injuries / suspensions between them, then that alone MAY be enough to stop him from signing. That's not to say we shouldn't try to convince him of course. Obviously we will probably never know how any such conversations go (if there even are any).
NB. This is NOT an argument against bringing in high quality players, and it's NOT saying that high quality players won't be willing to come and fight for a place. I'm just saying that each player will have their own agency in those respects, and it COULD cause some to not want to come.