supposedly Woodward/Judge saw players as assets to the value of the club
Not 'supposedly' they talked about it openly on shareholder calls.
Apologies in advance to any accountants but this is why they don't make great CEOs and/or senior leaders...because they understand the world in numbers but not their impact. Or...to use the old cliched line...they understand the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Sure, on the face of it, from an accounting perspective renewing a contract so as not to lose a player on a free and 'secure their value' is great.
However, in reality, there 'value' is only either a) there value to their current club as a player (so to us it's £0) and their value to a prospective buyer i.e. what someone is willing to pay (in this case, again, that's clearly £0)
So in reality, all we're doing is paying £5.5m per annum to "maintain" an "asset" that is worthless. It's like having an old piece of machinery on your factory floor that is no longer good for making product and does not have any scrap value - yet you still have it powered on, running 24/7 consuming electricity.