But isn't that risking bring stuck in the same cycle again and again and again mate. You sell off the few players you have who has e the potential to really take off and make a massive difference then basically you're just delaying the inevitable.
Take west ham - they kept Rice instead of cashing in and it paid off way more than if they'd tried a short term fix by cashing in on him (they did that when they had Lampard, Cole and Ferdinand and see what happened).
If we literally don't have any money whatsoever without selling then your point may be more valid, but then questions have to be asked about why in that situation do you pay 20m for McNeil and 30+m for Onana who isn't any sort of short term fix but a longer term project based on potential.
Can't have it both ways imo, either our recruitment has been woeful in terms of proper use of finances or we have finances and selling Gordon gives us a way of not actually spending money we don't want to