I agree. But (to my shame) I have over 24 thousand posts, and I've never made a wild claim like that, without being right. The person I spoke to knew, he wasn't guessing.
Isn't that the same thing though? You say no until an offer is high enough, and then you say yes. We could of course have gone further, and said 'no, and even if you double it, still no' I suppose.
I have it on very good authority from a Palace source that they really wanted him, but saw him as a bit of a project (needing to iron out mistakes) and so didn't want to spend what we'd accept.