They could use a 4th CB - doesn't mean that Toby will be that 4th CB. He could be first-choice, too. All depends on how things go, and that's ignoring the fact that Bayern and PSG (two of the four) actually do need starting CBs.
So, you agree - in the end, whichever player decides to agitate for a move will be dropped, and then the narrative will become 'that player is no longer one of our best, we're better without him, we're not like Arsenal, really guv'nor'.
Possibly Eriksen, next year. Possibly Alli, two years from now. And so on, and so forth. And one day ,we will look back, realize that we have become just like Arsenal, selling all our players to the clubs around us and rationalizing it as necessary (only without the trophies to show for it). And at least Arsenal cited financial necessity as a reason for folding like a pack of cards in front of their rivals - we're apparently considering using the 'harmony and standards' justification. It amounts to the same thing, in the end.
'We have ambition' and 'we have our place in the food chain' cancel each other out. If we have ambition, we do not respect our 'place' in the food chain so generously afforded to us by those above us - if we have our comfortable place in the food chain, then we are implicitly accepting that those above us will stay above us forevermore.
I believe telling United to include Martial or f*ck off is the only acceptable outcome here. Anything else is us capitulating to our 'place in the food chain' - nothing else, no matter how it's spun.
Eh? So, if Toby was this disruptive black sheep, pulling fire alarms, spitting in Poch's food and being generally disruptive as a 'bad apple', then it would have been in evidence all last season after the contract brouhaha. And yet, I don't think it was.
Modric was denied his apparent 'dream' move, and caused far more of an outcry about it than Toby has so far. The window shut, he buttoned down and became our best player again pretty much straight away. And, in the end, he got his move - abroad, to Madrid, and we weren't hurt by that.
I don't think there's much in this idea that our squad are all some precious babies that need to be protected from any hint of unhappiness or displeasure with an existing situation. They will keep competing regardless of what Toby does, because *they* want to play, not Toby - and Poch demands that if you want to play. Toby being grumpy won't change that.