The summer of 2023 was a time of change and a loud one.

Major teams were rebuilding, and during that same period, many of the good things that had happened to football were coming to an end.

The Premier League saw a lot of high-profile transfer moves.

One such move was Caicedo moving to Chelsea for a hundred and fifteen million pounds.

Yes, his ability was unquestionable, but the number made people stop and question if the player was really worth that amount of money being splurged, but ultimately, the consensus was no and that Chelsea had been done in.

Following that, Declan Rice moved to the red side of north London for 105 million pounds in a deal that left West Ham fans feeling complicated for days.

Outside the Premier League, a former Championship darling, Bellingham, moved to Real Madrid from Borussia Dortmund in a deal that saw the Los Blancos part away with 103 million euros.

Back to the Premier League, Gvardiol joined City from Bundesliga side RB Leipzig.

And then there were those deals that told so much in a few words.

Deals that signalled the end of an era.

Earlier in the year, the football world had seen one such deal go through when Cristiano Ronaldo joined Al Nassr from Manchester United.

This time, it was Neymar Junior, arguably the third-best player behind Ronaldo and Messi and the greatest player of his generation, leaving PSG to join Al Hilal in the Saudi Pro League.

And for the first time in his professional career, Lionel Messi also left Europe to join Inter Miami from PSG.

As these deals weren’t on, there was one thing certain, and that was that European football had lost 3 of its greatest soldiers in a matter of 6 months.

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Aside from the nostalgia, the transfer market was already getting louder and more expensive by the day, yet Wigan weren’t a part of that noise, at least not yet.

While Burnley and Sheffield United were already making noise, bringing names in, showing their intent to fight rather than just survive in the top flight, Wigan’s window had been quiet in a way that suggested either careful planning or a club still catching up with the reality of where they were.

Nobody was entirely sure which one it was yet, but inside the club, work was abundant more than ever.

Xavier’s office had seen better weeks.

The past seven days had seen him go from a fine, distinguished gentleman to almost homeless-looking.

He leaned back in his chair and looked at the spreadsheet on his screen, the one that had been evolving daily for the past week as contracts were signed and numbers were confirmed.

The negotiations hadn’t gone badly, but that didn’t mean they weren’t without their problems.

He didn’t know why, but whenever he saw money, even if it wasn’t his, he felt the need to protect it and save it, and maybe that was the reason why he was in his current position.

During the large-scale contract negotiations at the club, the fringe players had been the straightforward ones, and each had seen their salaries per week go up by around 4000 pounds to 8000 pounds, depending on their rank in the squad or how their agents had negotiated.

Those of the regulars like Tilt, Tiehi, Bennet and Ben Amos had all taken more than just an hour.

It was taxing, but Xavier had pulled through, and now, all of them were going to start earning between twenty-two and twenty-nine thousand pounds per week, more than double what they’d been on in the Championship.

It had felt like a lot in the room, and then he’d looked at what comparable players at other newly promoted clubs were earning, and it had felt slightly less like a lot.

The senior heads in the squad, though, had crossed the thirty thousand barrier, which was the number that had felt significant when it was first mentioned and had then become inevitable once the conversations started properly.

Whatmough sat at the top of the list at thirty-five thousand per week, which Xavier had agreed to and still thought about occasionally.

Defensively, the man had been immovable, and the number was justified, but it still stung slightly.

Others like McClean, Will Keane, Fletcher, and Max Power all saw their salaries per week move just past the thirty-thousand-pound mark.

Then there were players, or a player like Ezra.

Xavier had gone into the negotiations, but had come out beaten?

Noah had sat across from the club’s representatives for two sessions and had left both of them with more than he’d arrived with, and by the end of the second session, the number on the table had been one that Xavier had agreed to because the alternative was losing a player who had become genuinely important and whose profile was only going in one direction.

He’d agreed to it, and he stood by agreeing to it.

But sitting here now, looking at it in the context of what came next, it gave him a specific feeling in his stomach.

Because if Noah had gotten twenty-two thousand for Ezra, up from the five thousand pounds per week that the kid was formerly earning, he just knew that Leo’s contract was going to create a dent in Wigan’s bank because Leo was worth considerably more than Ezra to this football club.

He stared at the screen for another moment.

Then he leaned forward and pressed the intercom on his desk.

"Can you get me Noah Sarin’s contact?" he said. "I need to schedule a meeting regarding Leo Calderon’s future at the club."

He released the button and sat back, before rising to his feet and then pulling on his coat a moment later.

It wasn’t going to be easy, but he knew he had to be prepared to bargain to hell and that started with taking a shower.

"That is not pleasant," he muttered after raising his arm to his face.

Then, with that, he slipped out of the room.