I seriously doubt that that the two cases have any relationship. The Ilaix business was scuppered by his agents at the last minute (and by-the-by has left the lad wasting a whole year of his career), our interest in Emerson went back to when he was on loan at Betis, at least. That and the fact they play in completely different positions.
It's not like the days when young men purchased jazz mags - Men Only was sold out so you made do with a copy of Knave, which did the job and was a bit cheaper...
I often think that as fans we wildly misjudge how clubs conduct their transfer business - it's like how you see people wondering if our interest in x is actually just a smokescreen for our real target y. I just don't think clubs operate anything like that.