Personally feel the system has made the player seem more important than he is. I predicted this was going to happen during the summer window, and you have to blame the club for not looking for alternatives. Presently everyone else has competition bar Rudiger, and we spent the whole summer chasing Kounde when signing a LCB should have been priority. As for who we should have gone for, Laporte wanted out of City and he is a clear upgrade on him.
Personally wouldn’t give him £200k/w, he is playing in a system that makes every defender look better than their abilities. There is a trend in Europe of players in their late 20s running down their contracts for the big sign on bonus and a final large contract. Alaba did it at Bayern and demanded to be made their best player at over €300k/w, Pogba is doing it at Utd and demanding £500k/w, and Rudiger is doing it here. You bow to their demands and your Christensen, Jorginho, Kante will demand at least parity. Bayern moved on and signed a younger player in Upamecano, we should have focused on signing a competition/replacement in the summer.