Again, you cannot have a backup on 6m NET. That is Sandro's wages.
This is his last season with us but he's refusing to leave and that's that.
The club doesn't "see" anything in him, management isn't excited about him being in the squad, Allegri isn't pushing for him to be our starting LB. The financials are what they are. We cannot afford to have a replacement here while he is here.
We tried fixing this.
This is the entire reason Pellegrini was brought in. To be a cheap prayer that could take over his minutes and overall we'd have a cheap LB and an expensive LB and it would lessen the blow of sitting Sandro's 6m net wages on the bench. But that didn't work out, Pellegrini was not able to replace Sandro to a level that made it worth it.
You cannot operate like 6m net wages just isn't here. How many clubs in the world can operate like that? 4-6 EPL clubs, PSG, Bayern, Barca, and Real?
Yes, we should've sold earlier but hindsight is 20/20. I'm sure nobody thought Sandro would fall apart this quickly, this massively. His injuries and the following loss of ability, pace, and form is definitely not the norm. He's completely fallen off a cliff ability-wise and there was simply no way to plan for that at the time.