Having to endure watching him play for Citeh aren't exactly a prospect I am looking forward to either but I guess I'll have to accept that we've once and for all accepted we are not going to compete for top honours for a long while.
On the plus side, you'd only have to endure that for around two thirds of each season, so it's not all bad.
I'm of the opinion that if we can make a bucketload of cash out of him, and sign someone of similar ability (and as much as I like him, I don't think that is as impossible a task as you make it out to be), preferably who doesn't spend over a third of each season (on average) on the injury table, then I'll be pretty pleased. We'll have a shiny new player who doesn't disrupt the fluency of the team with constant injuries, and a pile of money to reinvest in the squad.
Of course, there's always a risk swapping a proven player for an unproven one, but unlike some, I think we have to trust the manager to reinvest the money wisely. I don't subscribe to the notion that because we've wasted so much money in recent years, we should default to a conservative, frugal approach, where we do everything we can to cling on to aging stars who have had their heads turned. Our disastrous efforts in the transfer market were mistakes of past managers, and should not be held against the new one. On the contrary, we should show the same faith in him that we showed in Dalglish. Shrewd deals in the transfer market still represent our best chance of closing the gap on the top four. That, and astute management. It may be that our faith in Rodgers turns out to be misplaced, but if we don't have faith in him, then we shouldn't have employed him. Having given him the job, we have to back him until he gives us reason not to.
