No I didn't think we hand out guide prices but the club have long acknowledge that every player has their price.
I don't expect Barber to know that price, but he would have an inkling of what an offer would need to be for the club to actually bother to work out that price.
In my hypothetical scenario should Mr Arse have said yes we'll pay £66million then Barber would waste Tony and a few boffins time to come up with a number which could be significantly north of that.
I just can't imagine Barber would give a price in the first place. If Arsenal made an offer and it wasn't enough to bother Tony, Barber would just reply with 'No'. Arsenal wouldn't find out whether Barber had bothered Tony or not.
If Barber did say to a club 'start negotiating at £xm', then I think that would limit the final price we could achieve. It would show the other club that Barber (a significant person in negotiations) thinks that price is reasonable and close to what we'd accept. The other club could then talk to the agent and tell them they're close to agreeing a deal, so the player/agent would put pressure on us to let them go, and the buying club would know they don't need to offer much more to get their man.
Instead, say nothing, and they don't know where they are. Then if they do make an offer that Barber and Tony thinks is worth considering, or close to what we would accept, they can let the buying club know we'll think about it. We then enter the same situation as above, but at a higher figure than if we'd said a figure in the first place.