First he extended for this insane 100m/y. He left afterwards when he earned enough. Haaland is still on his first contract, so it's comparable to Mbappe getting his first massive contract at PSG.
I don't see anyone refusing a massive first salary that goes into triple numbers per year. When you already have several hundreds of millions, or close to a billion then it's a different story, but Haaland isn't there yet.
And as you said, City isn't PSG and PL isn't League1. So Haaland can stay there for his whole career if he likes english football good enough in combination with a possible salary so high, that we can't offer even a fourth of it.
To me, Haaland's agent will play the game now to increase his salary massively. He will use us as well, so prepare for more "rumors" going forward.
I think everyone would prefer a backup that can compete with the starters, for sure.
But how much they cost? Those will be 25M+
It is easy to claim there are affordable hidden gems elsewhere, and usually there are, but truth is failure rate at those deals are extremely high.
I've mentioned Dedic a few times already, he is linked with a move to United (probably not a good sign, lol) in January. He would clearly be more expensive than Mingueza but has potential to be a starter in a few years. 20-25m is worth a punt for players like him, we've done much worse. I'm sure there are other similar players our scouts and Deco should know about more than I do though.
Top top priority next summer is replacing Lewa. That's the most critical urgent position to consolidate. We don't need an urgent LW anymore with our current style.
25M is too much for us to pay for a backup, even if great value for money.
And he himself will never be an option for us, he is ROGON client. We won't deal with those again, and they won't deal with us