I think this is all a smokescreen for the summer. I don't think we'll sell him in January, but he'll certainly go in the summer, probably to Man Utd, although I'd prefer to see him go to Spain.
This is modern football. We can't give him CL football and we can't pay him 100k a week, so he will go elsewhere, like Carrick. At elast we'll get 25-30m for him and be able to improve the team as a whole.
Let's just enjoy him while we can and hope he can fire us to a League Cup or UEFA Cup victory!