I don’t want to be money-grabbing
RAHEEM STERLING first came to the attention of the wider world in a TV documentary charting Brendan Rodgers’ early days in charge of Liverpool in the summer of 2012.
In footage from a pre- season training session, the Liverpool manager is seen rebuking Sterling — then a talented but largely untried teenager — for answering him back.
A little more than two-and-a-half years on and much has changed. Now Sterling is a 20- year- old England international and a cornerstone of Liverpool’s first team. Yesterday he was back on TV again but this time he was attempting to call the shots.
Sterling’s message to Liverpool, and indeed Rodgers, would appear to be clear. He does not want to stay at Anfield unless he can win trophies. He wants to play in his favourite midfield position. The interest from other clubs at home and abroad has made him feel good. As such, regardless of a £100,000-aweek contract offer, he may choose to leave.
As a piece of PR, yesterday’s BBC interview was of questionable value. An apparent attempt to clarify his stance regarding an unsigned Liverpool contract has only served to muddle things. In trying to bring an end to media and terrace chatter about his future, it has only given it fresh legs.
At one point during his chat, Sterling admitted supposed interest from Arsenal is ‘quite flattering’.
Just one problem. ‘ My next game is against Arsenal,’ he said, suggesting he can at least understand a fixture list, if not the delicacy of his situation or the impact of his words. ‘I want to do my best. I won’t be hiding.’
It’s just as well because the chances are that he won’t be able to. Liverpool’s fans, who value loyalty more than most, may have the young Londoner in their sights now. ‘I don’t want to be perceived as a money-grabbing 20-year-old,’ said Sterling, but the denizens of the Kop may perceive precisely that.
At Liverpool yesterday the club’s hierarchy were aghast. Not only did they know nothing of Sterling’s chat with the BBC until other journalists rang to ask them about it, they are understandably suspicious about the timing and motives. Rodgers and his players are coming off a sobering home loss to Manchester United, in which Sterling played poorly, and now face Arsenal in the League and Blackburn in the FA Cup — games that will go a long way to determining whether this current season is marked success or failure.
Now, rather than draw a line under talk about his contract, the subject of Sterling and his future will dominate the next few days. Liverpool and Rodgers, who tends to be unemotional about these things, view this as unhelpful and unsettling.
Was this the whole point of the arrangement made by Sterling’s management with the BBC? Liverpool are asking themselves this question, and, regardless of the answer, Sterling’s standing at the club has inevitably changed.
At training at Melwood today, Sterling will be treated no differently by Rodgers, just as Luis Suarez was dealt with evenly in the wake of interviews in the summer of 2013 in which he criticised his manager. There are other similarities with Suarez, though, that are less palatable for the latest Liverpool player to wonder if he would be better off elsewhere.
Liverpool’s owners will view this episode dimly. They would not sell Suarez to Arsenal in 2013. Selling good players to domestic rivals is not in John Henry’s playbook. Equally, the Americans will not sell Sterling this summer just because it would appear he may wish to leave. Suarez had to wait a year and so may Sterling. He remains under contract for another two years, after all.
And so a rather unpleasant game begins and it is tempting to wonder whether Sterling will emerge from it as he would wish.
Suarez was a worldly-wise, welltravelled football gun for hire when he decided to take Liverpool on. He left home at 14. He could cope. Sterling, on the other hand, still looks like the boy on that video and in some ways he still is. He spoke yesterday of his closeness to his mum and three-year old daughter. Will they move to Spain with him?
Sterling should not be blamed for his ambition. Equally, he should not be criticised for putting a number on his own value. He lives in an age when football salaries are soaring and in a couple of years the Premier League will be £5billion richer.
He has come a long way very quickly, however. Since that rollicking on the green grass of America in 2012, his trajectory has followed a steady upward course.
This would be a bad time indeed to make his first really bad decision.