Arsenal's Head of Football Raul Sanllehi has revealed the thought process behind the decision to not renew Aaron Ramsey's contract, but admitted it wasn't a situation he wants to be in again.
The Welshman's contract is due to expire next summer, and the two parties could not agree on a deal to keep him at the club beyond the date. It is understood the Welshman wanted at least double his current £110,000-a-week package, and was angling for something closer to Mesut Ozil's whopping £355,000-a-week arrangement.
But the club refused to yield, and now the 27-year-old will leave the club on a free at the summation of the season, unless Unai Emery's side are able to shop him for a cut-price fee in January.
Sanllehi, speaking to the Mirror about the situation, declared: "What I can assure you is that any decision we take at the club of any kind, whether it concerns players or any other thing, it is very thoroughly thought through, analysed and discussed by different people.
"I was talking about the great people we have; great professionals that bring the debate to rich conclusions. Let me use again the word responsibility. We are very responsible for every decision we take so we do not take these decisions lightly.
"We really try to analyse and decide the best thing for the club. That is our ultimate aim – to find what is best for the club. So all the decisions will try to go through that screening and in general it is going to continue that way.
Football managers always get long contracts and then get sacked just shortly after. Here's eight who still have time left! 😂
— 90min (@90min_Football) November 21, 2018
Alan Pardew still has two years left at Newcastle. 😜https://t.co/2a1sNZyhMI
"Then you have clarity over whether you want to sell, renew, send out on loan – all the options over that period.”
Ramsey, who has been with the Gunners since 2008, has attracted great interest from Bayern Munich, with Roma, PSG and Liverpool also keen.
Such high calibre destinations beg the question as to how it came to this point, and the Arsenal Chief admitted: “I can tell you the plan moving forward, and the idea is not to go to the last year of contracts. Normally we are going to try to avoid that."
Source : 90min