This is purely speculative but from how it all panned out I saw it as he was basically told to look for alt options because we had no players with trade value last season.
I think it is a remarkable turn around to basically losing all matches when he doesn't play and now having a suite of HF types as well as elite runners which filled his void.
For me he didn't look totally fit and didn't see any of his run and carry. I take my hat off to the club for basically offloading him while he still had trade value and also the fact he might never play 12 games/season ever again