Listen, the simple fact that he went into the last year of his contract is down to either;
1. Poor management by not offering a new deal early enough and protecting the value of your asset. What’s he worth in today’s market, £25m? I very much doubt that this is the case here.
2. The player and his management made all the right noises to the club about signing a new deal, to avoid being forcibly sold last summer (or even the summer before), without any real intention of that ever happening.
How anyone can defend a player in this scenario is beyond me. The greedy ****ers already get a kings ransom to wear the shirt, running down a deal and getting a Bosman is about one thing and one thing alone - CASH.