I don’t understand why a player who makes 7m per year should get the advantage over Ranocchia, Rovella or Fagioli.
It would be different it they’d perform a lot better, but that definitely isn’t the case.
On some level, if you don't play players you want to move you give them zero chance to outplay their struggles and sell them for anything. Look at Ramsey, at this point we're going to have to give him away. Not that he deserves playing time but he is unable to play himself out of his club struggles to at least get him out of here on a loan with decent option.
This is why I think Rabiot and Arthur are seeing regular playing time. Yes, the are proven and we hope they can achieve previous success or at least not be entirely detrimental to our side. But also we want them to PLAY themselves out of their struggles to at least let us sell them to break even. Rabiot its possible because of age and his wages in relation to EPL level midfielders aren't AWFUL. His amortization is relatively low.
Ramsey is his own beast because his wages are decently high and his value so low because he has zero place on this team and yet is also successful playing for Wales. An EPL club will take a chance on him I think but it will be free, no obligation maybe option loan, and we probably pay some of his wages.
Arthur is the impossible one and its why i think he's getting more and more minutes. Let him play himself out of his struggles and injuries and hopefully at least get SOME value back to his name so we can cut our losses and not lose a fortune on him.
When you think about it, SADLY this is the state of the club. To clean up the roster, you have to clear out these overpaid/underperforming players. But we don't exist in a bubble. Everybody can see they are overpaid and underperforming. Some clubs might still value them and get a deal at our misfortune and thats a risk for them and a treasure for us. These next 1.5 windows will exist of this. This is how you clean out a mess, this is how you pick up the pieces of a poorly constructed roster. And its where we exist right now. Inter and Milan have done this for the last ten years almost. We should see far less of a rebuilding (retooling I say). But until we clear these wages, the minutes are going to try and boost the value of the players we have while we use OTHER clubs' minutes to improve our players on loan.