I dunno, it all feels a bit too late any more. I don't want it to be but that's how it feels. The whole situation is a f'in tragedy as he never should've felt it was better to leave because we weren't good enough or whatever the case may have been. All those ridiculous goals he scored since he's been there...every one of them just stabbed me right in the gut because they should've been for Everton.
Who's to say, he could've had a career-ending injury 2 years after we sold him but the chances were slim of that happening and sure as hell not big enough to use as an excuse to sell that much potential and obvious ability. At the time there was nothing that he'd shown (apart from bad judgement on and off the pitch, at times) that said we should've sold him apart from our STILL appalling financial state.
Losing Wayne and King's Dock set us back a minimum of 30 years, IMHO...regardless if a billionaire bought us tomorrow.
It gets used in jest all the time now but, in this case, the saying "it's a joke, really" never rang more true.