16th May 2015, it is an emotional day. Steven Gerrard has left and I’ve got right on the ale. All the gin in the world couldn’t save me from the feeling that we’re losing a large part of the club. His performances have dropped in the last year, quite drastically as a matter of fact. So much so that he wouldn’t be a first team starter next season. Yet, to have a lad like him at our club cannot be underestimated. Someone who cares about the club so much that it hurts. All that love and all of that effort over the years has created a monster. A beautiful, dependable monster. Someone we look to at all times, for loyalty and for performances. Yet, has this clouded our judgement on the modern day footballer? Far from saying that we should blame Gerrard for this, but have we had too much of a good thing? Especially with Carragher being a one club man having only left recently. Have we, as a supporter base, failed to realise that this is a career for a lot of players, not a life-long dream. Just as you will too, some players just want to be recognised in their profession, earn a good wage and say they have contributed to success. It doesn’t matter where – just somewhere.
I know what you’re thinking – we all dream of a team of Robbie Keanes. He knew right from the get-go which 8 teams he dreamed of playing for as a child.
The reason I make the above point is in relation to one man. A boy, really. One lad that plays for Liverpool who bares the absolute brunt of our frustrations. Some of it warranted and some of it not so much. This player is Raheem Sterling. I would like to take a fair and level-headed look at exactly what I think has happened in this situation. It is true that some relationships just aren’t meant to be, and this could be one of them.
I’ll take this very opportunity to tell you that I wrote an awful lot of this piece before news broke on Monday evening of Sterling’s desire to leave the club during the summer. Had I known this a week ago I would more than likely have worded the article a little like this:
“Raheem Sterling is a cock, pass it on. By Luke Chandley”
Catchy, quick and right to the point it may be, but I understand this doesn’t really make for a rounded, fair piece of writing. Although I can imagine the popularity of this article would have been much better like that then producing something that is balanced and long. Soz guys, bad luck.
Throughout this season I have been at pains in a lot of my writing to stress how good I think Raheem Sterling is. When you say a player is good, you take into account a lot of things. His age, his level of performance throughout the year/years and of course his attitude. In his age bracket, I think there is no better footballer in the world. The amount of positions this boy can play in with a degree of competence is unreal. If we played him at right-back each week he would do a better job than Johnson has during his Liverpool career (something that, to be fair, I could have do). He’s also got solid stats in attacking positions, too. Yes, I understand that we aren’t paying him primarily to play in a whole bunch of positions, but we all know Rodgers loves a versatile player, and Sterling has more positional flexibility than an Olympic gymnast.
There is however, an argument to be had that it is best for a player’s development to play them in one position consistently. I know, who would have thought that. So, should Sterling have been treated the same? Ideally, yes. This constant change of position could be the reason we’re seeing a very out-of-sorts Raheem Sterling playing for Liverpool of late. Moping around like a child without his favourite toy, Sterling has looked like a little lost soul during the last couple of months. Naturally, he’s probably very cheesed off with the fact that he seems to have been sold down the banks by his agent and when photos were released of him smoking a shisha pipe he can only really have doubts about the people around him. That has got to be a royal kick in the balls for a 20-year-old who is away from his home town and has a family to look after. Sometimes we do forget how young he is.
Having said all of the above, I’m a fan myself and he has really done my f*cking head in of late. I don’t necessarily expect loyalty from my footballers. I also don’t expect them to be emotionless robots. As stated above, loyalty in Football has almost gone. We have certainly profited from other players who have shown a lack of loyalty to their clubs by moving to us. Respect is something I do expect from my team’s players. Respect in order to support them. Respect towards the club. Respect towards the fans. Respect towards a manager who has shown his absolute faith in Raheem Sterling from day one. But this respect hasn’t come. His effortless displays in recent weeks have been an absolute disgrace. He may want to win things, as everyone else does, including me, but the least he could do is turn up to the games that could help us win a trophy or compete in Europe.
If I was manager of Liverpool Football Club, me, the fan, Luke Chandley, if I would have been the manager of Liverpool Football Club, I would have called Raheem Sterling all of the names under the sun after these past few months. Yeah, all of them. I’d have been a right horrible geezer. But if I was manager of Liverpool Football Club, me, the fan, Luke Chandley, I would have also been caught calling him all of the good names too. Yeah, all of them. And why is that? This brings me onto my next point:
Fans are fickle. I’m a fan and I am fickle. I’m so fickle it is unreal. Aren’t we all? If you say no, you’re probably the worst of them. If you’re offended, you’re probably in denial of your obvious fickleness. It’s our job as fans to feel each extreme emotion that there is, from loving a player when he makes a crunching tackle to hating him once he misses a sitter. This is what it’s all about. You need to, however, think about the whole of the story. You need to calm down and have a think. Here is a player who apparently wants to leave. This is what we’re hearing from the papers. Why does he want to leave? This is where the fans have been harping on about him being greedy. “Sterling wants too much money”. “Sterling isn’t good enough yet”.
As a matter of fact, I agree with both of the above sentiments, but there is a stark context that needs to be given to each scenario. Raheem Sterling isn’t a good enough football player yet. That is true. His decision making is terrible, and I’m fairly certain he can only kick a ball 4 yards, but he’s only 20. To be as good as he has been in other areas of his game at that age lends itself to certain negotiating advantages. It means that when Raheem Sterling looks at Balotelli earning the reported £90,000 per week he is on, or the £140,000 per week Daniel Sturridge is now on, he feels hard done by. This isn’t something totally driven by a need or want for more money, this is driven by a need or want to be needed and wanted. Money is a great indicator of success. It’s also a great indicator of how much a company, or football club in this instance, likes you. It’s strange, it’s sad but it’s true. Players feel that they need to be near the top of the pile to be worth their weight in goals.
On the other side of it, I do feel that Sterling and his agent have displayed a trait that we fans often portray. That is the trait of viewing anything that isn’t top dollar as crap. Fans see players as “oh, he’s brilliant, oh he’s fantastic” or “Jesus, he is stinking the gaff out” – there is no appropriate middle ground. To Sterling £30,000 per week is crap and £150,000 is great, but there is no middle ground. He won’t take any less than that (or so he says) and he’s set his stall out in such a way, but he’s now alienating an awful lot of the people who can make his time at this football club an awful lot better than at any other club in English football. When Liverpool fans back you, it’s inspiring. They will sing your name and defend you until they are blue in the face, but they aren’t stupid. They know when their club is being taken for a ride. There is a good chance that Sterling has burnt too many bridges with fans at this club and he isn’t strong enough to build these bridges again. Yet, if he does decide to stay, let’s hope he gives us a bit of effort, because he can count on one thing. And that thing is this: Football fans are fickle, give us a little bit of what we want and building bridges after saying you want to leave can often be easier than it seems. Just ask Steven Gerrard.
