Previous experience could determine just whether Fabio Carvalho becomes a Liverpool player by the end of today.
The 19-year-old winger has been a standout performer in the Championship for Fulham this season and Liverpool have been sufficiently impressed to try and engineer a £5m swoop for the Portuguese before the closing of the January transfer window this evening, adding to the £37.5m business already concluded for Porto forward Luis Diaz.
But Fulham, keen to keep hold of their exciting prospect, aren't keen on selling, especially if it means they lose him for the remainder of their season and their tilt at a return to the Premier League, with the club currently sitting five points clear at the summit of the Championship.
And with Liverpool pretty much at the limit of what they are willing to pay for Carvalho at present, with the teenager out of contract in the summer.
Liverpool want it done now in order to avoid the potentially messy situation of a tribunal at the end of the season, with the Cottagers being entitled to compensation for Carvalho if he does move on due to their role in his development, having nurtured him in the academy from 2014 following his family moving to England from Portugal in 2013.
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Fulham don't feel particularly pressured to sell him now, especially if he won't be loaned back to them, and they would be confident of receiving at least what Liverpool are offering at present.
And if it went to tribunal it would offer the chance for other clubs to show their hand, with European clubs able to pick up the fraction of what it would cost English clubs, with clubs from other European only required to pay a nominal fee in line with FIFA regulations.
Liverpool and Fulham have been down this route before, with neither particularly pleased.
When Liverpool moved for a then 16-year-old Harvey Elliott in 2019 they had offered some £750,000, a figure well below the £8m that the Cottagers had wanted to receive.
The Professional Football Compensation Committee (PFCC) is designed to protect the interests of English football clubs who produce talent through their own systems, and when a panel met last year to decide on Elliott's fee it was ruled that a fee worth potentially as much as £4.3m would be paid to Fulham. It was a record compensation fee for a 16 year old.
A Liverpool statement released in the wake of the tribunal read: "Liverpool Football Club respects the outcome of the PFCC’s fair and thorough process in this matter."
Fulham declared themselves pleased with the outcome, although the manager at the time, Scott Parker, had lamented the decision.
Parker said: "It’s madness really. This is a player who had been developed at this football club for a long, long time.
"I think he was our youngest-ever player. We gave him his debut. You don’t want to go and spend £20-30m on players.
"That’s why the academy for us is so important – because you want to develop these players. We had developed that player for a big club to take him.
"Harvey Elliott has the potential of being a top-class football player. Liverpool have taken him off us for minimal numbers for the potential of what Harvey is capable of."
Liverpool, who were also stung by tribunal over Danny Ings' 'free transfer' from Burnley in 2015 when they paid a record compensation figure of £8m, are wary of having to pay above and beyond should it go to tribunal.
And with teams from abroad able to show their hand for far less financial risk it represents the possibility of the price being driven high due to the sheer interest in acquiring Carvalho's services.
Liverpool's desire to expedite the process means that the window of opportunity is a small one to get the deal done for Carvalho.
To go into the uncertainty of a tribunal, something that is a messy affair that takes time, money and the allocation of club resource, and which could cost them far more than they were willing to pay now, would likely not chime with the kind of financial prudence that has become Liverpool's hallmark in recent years.
For Fulham, keeping Carvalho, either on loan or risking losing him to a European club for a small nominal fee in the summer, is worth the risk due to the financial impact that returning to the Premier League would have for the Cottagers come the end of the season.
Should that be derailed by losing someone like Carvalho, late in the window with no real chance to get in an acceptable replacement, then it would not be deemed worth the risk.
