The fact that we kept him for so long does make me feel oddly better about his departure. It's been frustrating at times, and I know a lot of people will say that we should have got rid sooner, but at least this way I feel like the club has thoroughly fulfilled its own responsibilities. There's nothing knee-jerk or short-termist about the decision. We bought a young player, he had trouble with injuries and with adapting to the team, but we gave him as long as any club could reasonably be expected to give before deciding that it was time to move him on.
It's like a much less extreme version of giving Moyes another year (which is something I'm glad we didn't do, just to be clear.) Yes, it irked at the time and it's probably cost us in a number of ways, but I think it says something good about the club that we stuck with Anderson for so long. It's the opposite of the City approach of buying a player one summer, trying them out, and replacing them with another one the very next summer if they're not an immediate success.