To begin with, I'm a Liverpool fan, and completely agree with you. If we were ever to sell El Nino, which will hopefully be many years away, I pray he'd leave the Premiership.
You happen to say that you'd be giving £50 million to a rival team. It's not really that which you'd be handing us. You have to consider that we'd have to gamble possibly a good £30 million on another top class striker. If that doesn't work out, then the other £20 million doesn't matter. As much as I hate Hicks, even he wouldn't be that daft to sell our prised asset. A guy who has literally slipped into the Premiership and taken it by storm. Someone, whose already reaping the club rewards on the merchandising side and out stripping for the first time, Gerrard for shirt sales.
I know first seasons can deceive. The more difficult second season faces him, as managers have had more of a chance to analyse his style of play. Mind you, saying that, his variation of goals this past season gives me great hope.
As for Ronaldo, he was nothing to do with Rafa. Our scouts looked at him, but for some unknown reason, he went for Diouf instead. We bid some miserly amount for him. Then United came along with the stupid money that they could afford. End of story.