He's better than Downing and would've cost half the fee Downing did.
Btw i'm not saying we should have signed him, but if we're looking at average British players then i'd prefer to go for the ones that aren't going to cost double what they're actually worth.
I imagine we would have ended up paying inflated fees for whoever we had gone for last summer.
It was fairly well known that we had money to spend. If we had been in for any player the selling club would have raised the asking price.