YEs that was part of it but he wouldn’t have gone for £6m or whatever it was if his contract wasn’t running out. He was great for the time he played here.
It’s the same situation we have seen with van Persie, Sanchez, etc and why Walcott ended up on £150k.
He played for us a handful of times- despite being a prospect he hadn’t really done anything to warrant a high price tag. When he left us he still had three years to run on his contract.
You’re bang on with Sanchez and Judas, we let them go on the cheap because they had mere months to run on their deal. Walcott’s agent bent us over, he was in his last year and bang in form- seemed the wise thing to do to keep him at the time tbh.