“RAHEEM Sterling, your agent’s a knob.”
It was a chant lost in the Anfield farewells to Steven Gerrard, but as Liverpool’s number 31 toiled his way through one of his worst performances of the season in the match against Crystal Palace, it tumbled down The Kop from sections of the famous old stand. When a player – or his agent (or both) — dares to suggest the future is brighter elsewhere it never sits well with die-hard fans. It never will and why would it? Only a match-going Liverpudlian looks at Liverpool FC like a match-going Liverpudlian. Why would a player born in Jamaica and raised in Wembley think the same way?
But we must have blood. There needs to be fault. Liverpool through the prism of a Kop season ticket holder is football nirvana — why would you ever leave? It’s the greedy player. The incompetent officials currently allowed to wear the club tie. Or the agent’s a knob. Maybe it’s all of those things. Whatever the balance of reason, a finger must be pointed somewhere. Football realities are hard to take. Who wants facts when they make grim reading?
QPR fans probably felt the same way when 15-year-old Sterling headed for Merseyside for an initial fee of £600k in February 2010. According to former Rangers chairman Gianni Paladini the club offered to buy Sterling’s family a house if he stayed. He didn’t. And instead, according to Paladini, the club settled for a clause that guarantees QPR 20 per cent of the sell-on fee should Liverpool flog the winger to Manchester City, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Arsenal or any of his other potential suitors.
Teenage Sterling was without a professional contract at the time and QPR were going nowhere in the middle of the Championship, changing managers more often than Brendan Rodgers changes his formations at Wembley.
Premier League Liverpool — managed by the European Cup-winning manager Rafael Benitez — came knocking with bigger promises, better contracts and higher ambitions. Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Fulham also coveted the kid but it was deal done, wave goodbye and Sterling was soon a pupil at Rainhill High School.
On a QPR message board discussing the move the first post in the thread (their caps not mine) ‘Another Bright Talent Leaves QPR WELL DONE PALADINI’ date stamped February 28, 2010, reads: “WHAT IS THE POINT IN HAVING A YOUTH SET UP?”
Another poster added: “How on earth can it be right that a player believes/is advised that he has a better chance of developing at Liverpool than QPR? First team football at QPR would be just around the corner. Not so at Liverpool. It is a damn poor reflection on the youth set up at Rangers that we can’t show lads that the opportunity to shine is at Rangers, not the reserve and youth teams of others.”
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
The very same arguments are now being trotted out by Liverpool fans on the internet and Liverpool players past and present in the news. There’s lots of sense in it. It may well be the case that if Sterling leaves Liverpool he is no longer a first-choice player among the star-packed squads he is being linked to. It may well be the case, too, that he – and his agent – are getting way ahead of themselves with all this.
Sterling hasn’t won a thing. He is a potential match-winner rather than a proven one. He might make the difference but often he doesn’t. Between him and Aidy Ward, he has alienated Liverpool fans, defied the club’s wishes and created the image of the ‘money-grabber’ — one he is clearly aware of and was quick to refute in his unauthorised BBC one to one.
But then maybe it’s not the case. Maybe Sterling proves the received wisdom wrong. Maybe — like last season when he was playing around Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge and Phil Coutinho — Sterling shines in the company of top players. Maybe he is swept up by the belief and confidence gleaned from looking around a changing room and seeing proven match-winners at the highest level preparing for action.
Too much focus has centred on what Sterling isn’t. What about what he is? Sterling has 14 caps for England. He has played 129 times for the Liverpool first team and scored 23 goals. The facts speak for themselves, as do the clubs that are reportedly interested in signing him. But, some say, we’ll just replace him with Jordon Ibe — a 19-year-old with 651 Premier League minutes and one assist to his name. How about we keep both? How about we stop the Anfield talent drain? Sterling’s villainous casting due to recent actions shouldn’t mean an end to the awkward questions.
So back to the finger pointing. Who’s really at fault for this very public of break ups? Could it have been prevented? What are just stark of realities of football and Liverpool’s position in the grand scheme of things and what can be attributed to the ambition, or lack of, of the current owners?
The thinking from many goes that Sterling’s performances have dipped as his eye has strayed from the ball to the bank to the glittering trophies being chased by other clubs (and not so convincingly by Liverpool this season). To my mind at least, Sterling has been one of the few bright spots of the season, alongside Phil Coutinho, Jordan Henderson and, at times, Mamadou Sakho and Emre Can.
If Liverpool can keep him, they should. He has bags of potential. He has pace to burn. His finishing looked to be improving until late and he can have a defender on toast; the same one three times in the one attack some days. He’s also, despite the constant shouts to the contrary, not afraid of hard work and able to play in a number of positions — handy when your squad isn’t that deep on quality.
So have Liverpool done everything they possibly could to prevent the situation whereby they tell the world they want a policy that values youth above all else only to potentially lose their best youth talent of all?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5aYRIhRIjA
Just over a year ago, Liverpool beat Norwich 3-2 at Carrow Road to move five points clear at the top of the Premier League. Sterling scored two goals that day and assisted the third, finished by Suarez. After the game, Brendan Rodgers said: “He is the best young player in European football at the moment.
“At 19 years of age you don’t see anyone better. His intelligence with the ball, his movement and he’s scoring goals. His first goal was a wonderful strike.
“His pass for Luis’s goal was like a top midfield player, so there’s an assist, and his position for the counter attack when he broke away and obviously gets a bit of luck on the deflection but his overall performance he’s shown so much maturity.”
All that said then, did Liverpool pay Sterling accordingly? Like the “best young player in Europe”? Or are the fellas in the shorts and he fellas in the suits pulling in different directions again? It has been widely reported that Sterling was — and still is — on £35,000-a-week. About three times less than Glen Johnson. Is that fair?
Jamie Carragher was scathing of the actions of Sterling and his agent in again making a private stand-off a public matter. It was hard to disagree with his passionate stand on Sky and it made you wonder how much similar passion, pride and knowledge of the game is behind the walls at Anfield, Chapel Street, Melwood and Boston.
But it’s also worth remembering another insight from Carragher’s long-term team-mate and fellow legend Gerrard earlier in the season. Gerrard said at the start of February: “They need to sign him [Sterling] now. He knows what I want him to do. Not just him, Jordan Henderson as well.
“When I was coming through at Liverpool, every time you got within a couple of years left your contract would be renewed and there would no worrying or panic stage, but I see Henderson with a year left and I see Sterling — it is in the paper too much and I know there is no smoke without fire.
“So, for me, the message to the club is to get these done sharpish because these are the future of the club and I want to watch this team do well, in cup finals and challenging for the league.”
It seemed sound advice. It wasn’t heeded. Now this.
Football finance experts at Deloitte reported that the average wage for a Premier League player was £31,000 a week in the 2012-13 season. You can bet it’s more now and that figure will continue to rise as the record £5.1bn TV rights sale begins to influence boardroom negotiations.
As things stand Liverpool are paying Sterling an average wage for the league when he is clearly one of the club’s — and the league’s — best players. So how is that a strategy that makes any sense? Like the brinkmanship taking place with other players at the club, it seems to be a recipe for disaster. And now, disaster we have. The captain retiring. The starlet departing. Maybe.
Then there is the issue of ambition. With the best will in the world, Divock Origi, Danny Ings and James Milner as summer recruits hardly set pulses racing — it’s solid rather than spectacular. Maybe rather than definitely. Future, in the case of the first two, rather than now. Is it any wonder Sterling is questioning the direction of the club? Plenty of fans are. What’s the difference?
One trophy in nine years. A title challenge last season that was the exception rather than the rule. Liverpool — in trying to keep Sterling and in trying to tempt the targets they have routinely missed out on — have to sell something to players present and future. The club doesn’t pay top wages. The club can’t offer Champions League football. So what is it? Just that you’ll get a game? That we’re famous?
It needs to be more than that. Our history is a great source of pride and rightly so. But most of the players Liverpool now try to sign can not remember a time when the club were the league champions.
All this doesn’t excuse Sterling’s behaviour though, or that of his agent. Contract negotiations shouldn’t take place via the back pages of newspapers and some of the claims lapped up by sections of the media are laughable. The club hasn’t protected Sterling from negative headlines? Well to be fair, he’s had a good crack at making them all by himself, along with Mr Ward.
Six months of claim and counter claim has not been good for the morale of the club or for anyone involved, not least the player. Now what should be a 20-year-old potential superstar is being presented as damaged goods with a tarnished reputation. Talk of no way back is flooding the airwaves. The lad is selfish, cares little for team-mates, the manager, the coach or the fans. The new John Barnes is now the new Tony Daly, the new Scott Sinclair, the new Shaun Wright-Phillips or the new Jack Rodwell.
Sterling too, told the Sunday Times magazine he wanted a song from the Kop. He’s got a song — it’s just never really taken off. It’s unlikely it ever will now — a kiss and make up looks unlikely if not impossible. Stranger things have happened. Ask Gerrard. But just in case. That song then, it goes: “When he goes running down the Anfield Road E I E I AY/He’s the greatest little winger that we’ve ever been sold E I E I AY/ 600 grand oh what a fee / when he’s skipping around Vincent Kompany / Raheem Sterling, number 31/ If you don’t be quick he’s away and gone.”
Ironies abound. A song celebrating the price then warning about being quick or he’ll be gone. Liverpool haven’t been quick and chances are he’s gone. Chances are we’ll get a good price though. Will we celebrate that? A glance at how the Luis Suarez cash changed Liverpool fortunes suggests not.
The Sterling situation has been handled badly all round, from all sides, but the PR war to decide who is now the good and the bad requires balance among the bullshit. It’s not just Raheem Sterling’s agent who has been a bit of a knob here.
You want the blame and the finger pointing? Go on then. It’s Ian Ayre’s fault. It’s Raheem Sterling’s fault. Aidy Ward’s fault. FSG’s fault. It’s Brendan Rodgers’ fault. The players’ fault. It’s the historic failings and years of mismanagement. All the people involved in that — it’s their fault as well. The Liverpool we want is not the Liverpool we have got.
The reality is that Liverpool is, according to the Forbes Rich List published earlier this month, the eighth richest club in the world. Which sounds mighty impressive. But when you consider four of the seven above are in the league the Reds operate in — Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United — then it’s no wonder players increasingly consider Liverpool a stepping stone rather than a destination. And it’s no wonder other clubs now see Anfield as a club to be plundered rather than a rival to be feared.
What must not be allowed to happen is that Liverpool compound that well-documented disadvantage with questionable nous and routine failure at all levels of the club. Football realities are hard to take. Preventable negligence even harder. It’s then the finger pointing starts again.
Because us, the fans? We’re not the knobs in all this.
TAW PLAYER SPECIAL: Raheem Sterling
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda-Photo
Gareth Roberts, continuing to kill it.
It’s weird for me, as someone who came late to the game, because I don’t view Liverpool as a big club. Those who grew up with it do. The problem is that for players like Sterling and Depay, their perspective is much closer to mine. LFC has won only one thing of consequence in their living memory, and that was a decade ago.
The even bigger problem is, what evidence is there that FSG have the ambition to be a big club?
I think there’s a big disconnect here and it’s causing a lot of people a lot of anguish. Liverpool Football Club competes against Tottenham and Everton and Southampton. Things make a lot more sense and seem a lot rosier if you look at it that way.
We are the 8th biggest club on the planet.
You should consider raising your expectations to a similar level to those who have supported the club for just 10 years or so.
But Liverpool doesn’t play in the world. They play in Britain. And in Britain they are upper middle class.
Also, all the other clubs above Liverpool win stuff (except Arsenal). If LFC wants to be a Europa League powerhouse that’s possible. But consistently competing for the Champions League or Premier League just isn’t possible.
They play in England. The Scot and Welsh leagues are shocking. So bad, the top teams in Wales had to fight the FAW to not be forced to move into their new shitty league.
As if that wasn’t enough, there are four bigger, richer and better run clubs in the same division as LFC. LFC are way behind, thanks to Moores and Parry fucking about with the business making it their personal social club. If another sugardaddy arrives, it’ll probably be Spurs or West Ham, once their stadiums are complete, we’ll then slip further behind of FSG don’t up the ante.
This is the business model. Players become a source of profit. This is what “Belief in Youth” is about and why FSG didnt need a manager with a proven background.
From all the sources available and my own imagination running wild, I think I’m starting to get an understanding of all this. I think the initial problem started in the summer when Liverpool failed to replace Suarez. I’m guessing Raheem got a taste for competing at the highest level and was disappointed about the lack of striker and so the first seeds of disillusion were sewn.(I still picture his face just after Gerrard’s talk on the pitch after the City game – long time since we’ve seen him smile like that).
Then he wasn’t offered a contract renewal when he should have been by modern standards. I’d imagine that on top of the lack of ambition in the summer, the lack of respect started a process rolling. When talks did appear to open Liverpool were doing poorly on the pitch, confirming his fears. Once these negotiations started I’d guess there was player who was leaning towards the door but still unsure. I’d guess that led to the £150k a week demand. Either pay or we’re off, not bothered either way but there’s no compromise from our side. It’s easy if you don’t care. The club see it as a necessity to play hard ball and right or wrong, Henry doesn’t cave in easily. It’s led to us losing out before and will again.
So, two sides being so stubborn is obviously gonna lead to ill feeling. I think at this point Sterling was leaning more to – I don’t want to discuss it any more, I’m not signing because it doesn’t look like we’re gonna be in the CL and I’m not going in that Europa shite. I think the club have said – well, we’re not selling you so it’s up to you. Sign on our terms or fuck off. At that point it becomes a battle of attrition. I don’t think there can be a resolution.
So, now worried about Liverpool’s stance, the agent puts in motion the start of the end game. Give an interview which is a veiled message that Liverpool can’t match his ambition and he wants out. The club would have been incensed and dug their heels in more. The battled continued until this week when the final wedge was driven in. Chris Bascombe wrote a good piece where he said he’s tried to make it impossible for Liverpool to keep him. It lowers his value (in the same way people claim Suarez’s bite was an attempt at the same thing, though I don’t agree) and makes it almost impossible to keep him and play him. He also made the point the timing of all this could be in the hope the Liverpool fans boo him at Stoke making it even more difficult to keep him.
I think since sterling’s head turned his form has suffered a bit. He always looks like he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders but more so recently. I don’t think you can give 100% to a team you don’t want to be at. Then there’s Rodgers. We learned on the podcast last night that there seems to be a break down with Rodgers and the agent / possibly Sterling too. I think in that crucial period where we’d had a revival Sterling was almost gone but not quite as we still had a chance for CL but the wing back role would have edged him further. Was it Rodgers stamping his authority a bit. Pure speculation but I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve sensed discord between them. Gerrard’s retirement announcement (in the wake of losing Suarez in the summer) also turned him further away from us. That was also clear in the BBC interview.
Everyone’s to blame. The club’s model backfired on us spectacularly not once or even twice but several times and that led to a series of events which has brought us here. I suppose Sterling’s agent has gone about things badly but I don’t believe he’s not getting backing for his strategy from Sterling. It’s a mess all round but in some ways Sterling is right. If I played for Spurs at the minute and I was top player and they showed me no respect and their fans abused me I’d be like, see ya.
Robin. I don’t think they Sterling’s camp can really say that the club has shown him no respect. They made him a substantial contract offer when he still had over 2 and half years left on his current one. They have given him every indication that they want to keep him. Rodgers has praised him to the skies. Rodgers has given him a winter break. Rodgers has given him more game time than he could possibly expect playing for any of teams he might be hoping come in to him. Rodgers has given him opportunity to play and develop in all the forward positions. (If he has had a handful of games paying wide midfield, because is that a wing back in Rodger’s set up generally is, he should just suck it up).
I’m not sure what my view on the whole thing is, but any club is this position is on a bit of a hiding to nothing, in these days of player power. If Liverpool had got off to a flying start this season, perhaps fired on by a fit Sturridge, maybe Sterling would have signed up once his agent had extracted the best deal. Maybe, but maybe not. It is clear his head has been turned at some point and everything that has gone on since that point is part of the game both sides feel they need to play to get the most beneficial outcome.
Shortly after the BBC interview, John Cross wrote a story that City were planning to come in with a bid right at the start of the transfer window. Cross has form with Liverpool transfers, trolling us with the Suarez to Arsenal story, but he clearly has good links with the agents and then his happy to trot out a story that suits the agents agenda, particularly if it paints Liverpool in a bad light.
He has written another completely one-side slating of Liverpool this week, again clearly fed by Raheem’s agent. These stories need to be seen for what they are, an attempt by to justify Raheem’s stance, but mainly to convince Liverpool that a transfer is inevitable and make it difficult for them to resist whatever offer comes in.
What should Liverpool do? I think they should be ready to sell, if there is no reasonable offer that will get him to re-sign. In the meantime they should do pretty much do what they are doing now. Tell everyone they are not selling, so that any team tempted to make an offer is going to know they won’t get him cheaply, and get JWH primed to send a “what are they smoking at the Etihad” tweet. Doing that puts the pressure back on the agent, as he needs to secure a buyer ready to spend big and make an offer too good to turn down.
I agree with everything you say there. Everyone knows what’s gone on. I was just trying to put it in to some chronology and exaggerate the key points and how they may be interpreted emotionally. Had we offered him a renewed contract, say, 14 months ago then we wouldn’t be having this conversation. From the clubs side it’s how they do things, not necessarily disrespectful. If I was Raheem and I was one of the most important players in the title race yet on a third of the others, I’d be offended. I’ve seen it in life a million times. Why the fuck does he get more than me for doing the same job? People want to be treated equally or they get bitter. That’s what I mean by disrespectful. Not intentionally but that’s how it can /will be subliminally interpreted.
For me, the club have done nothing malicious in all this. Sterling neither. I don’t think it was ever intended to be a battle. On the one hand you had a club with a strict policy and on the other a kid who needed reassuring. The human / emotional signs were missed by the club and those emotions lost faith and we end up here.
All the bitterness now is a result of our stance. Being bullied simply translates as they’ve offered me £100k and if I don’t sign they won’t sell me. It shows the level of the fallout. One could argue, whilst we tried to play hard ball City tapped him up and offered him what he wants.
And that’s the crux of it. We said all along on here, pay him his worth or you lose him because someone else will and that’s exactly what’s happened. Which would you choose? Point being, we’re not as smart as we think. We don’t hold all the cards. Simple as that. So, agree, the club haven’t done anything wrong and they’ve offered him a good wage. The problem is, they haven’t offered the market value and have made threats that he accepts or he rots in the reserves on £35k. It’s not the way to do things. We have to be reactive to situations. Our negotiations are on an email from FSG and there’s no deviation. This is the result.
When it comes to Rodgers and Sterling I’ve no idea what the relationship is except a slight hint last night.
My line is we should keep him (and hope something happens to change his mind and stay) but it’s bullshit. It’s based on my vindictive streak rather than common sense.
Just a final thought. Sterling has cost us less than £5m so far, he wanted around £7m a year. For 3 years that would be £26m gross spent. He’d be 24 and worth £25m + (surely). You start with nothing and you leave with nothing. Except you’ve had 5 years out of him. We should have sealed the deal. We didn’t. He lost faith. We then offered one below market value. He saw no reason to sign it. We lost him.
Generally agree Robin, but market value is tends to be in the eye of the beholder.
What is market value for a very promising young English player, capped at senior level, who has shown he can score in the Premier League. LFC think it is 90-100. Sterling’s agent might think it is 150k, and if he can extract that from City maybe he is right. Spurs clearly think it is 35-40k, and Harry Kane is not bitching about his new contract.
In fairness mate, market value has two variables. Shares are worth what someone will pay and that’s determined by the demand. Same in football. Would one of the best 20 year olds to appear in the Prem to date be in demand? Would a club in the top 4 pay £150k a week? We haven’t met the market value. Got ourselves to blame. It’s great standing up to these footballers and changing the way football has become, except we’re not looking too smart now.
I completely respect your view of £100k being plenty and the club trying to do the right thing. I just hope it’s worth the victory when come next season we’re mid table average and Sterling’s blossoming further and making headlines at City. No way on this earth Sterling will join the above list of failures, he’s too good. We’ve seen it. If we want to break into the top 4 we need the extra-ordinary players like Sterling. If we want 5th then sell him and get Milner. We’ve made a huge error.
I think footballers’ contracts and transfers are a strange market. On one hand we can say market value is what someone is prepared to pay, and Man City look like they will be ready to pay £150k a week. On the other hand that reasoning says that Andy Carroll was worth £35 mill, Glen Johnson was worth £110k a week and apparently James Milner is now worth £165k a week.
City can end up creating a bit of a market distortion at the moment due to there particular requirement to recruit English players to get there quota up. Not only are they working with a bigger budget than us, but their need for English talent is greater.
I think Sterling is a very good player, with the potential to be exceptional. I hope Liverpool keep him. But the reality is Liverpool need to ensure they don’t roll over for agents if they are to make the most of the smaller salary budget they have when compared to the four wealthier teams in England.
We can say Liverpool should give him the extra £50k per week, but that £3m pa in extra employment cost means the £3m pa not available to pay someone else’s salary, perhaps the person who is going to bring the goals we need. Is Sterling worth 4-5% of Liverpool’s total salary budget? Maybe he is. He could certainly proved to be in time.
Anyway all the above is irrelevant because as Raheem told us himself, it’s not about the money! ;-)
I think Robin is right about the market value. Liverpool fucked up by not offering him a new contract earlier. Did they think – we won’t offer him a new contract because hopefully he’ll have a shit season and we can get him for £50k a week. They must have considered the risk that he’d get better and what terrible planning. You can’t blame the lad for asking for the money. I think £150k is pushing it but £125k seems about right to me because as Robin argues, somebody else will pay it. Sterling will be thinking to himself, if this club really wants to keep me, they’ll pay it.
I think we should sell Sterling if we get an obscene offer, which we won’t. This season he has been little better than his first season as a first team regular. When I read about his undoubted potential I can’t help teflecting on Wright-Phillips, Jeffers, and a conga-line of wunderkinds who got bad advice but big money. If he put in shifts at Chelsea, City, RM like he’s put in over recent months he’d be back on the well-stocked bench. Those benched are like glue. Hard to get off.
Sterling is a symptom of a problem that is growing at LFC. He has said its not the money but lack of trophies. We haven’t won any, and won’t. Under the present set up he’s probably right.
I don’t want to take over almost-dead coals, but I cannot believe that Kenny would have brought us to this. His admittedly flawed second coming looks like a golden age, FSG made many blunders when they took over, but sacking him was their biggest. Plumping for youth and inexperienced players was a gamble that may have paid off with a manager who’s seen it all, but not with a manager who knows it all, or said he does.
If we start next season with the hierarchy we finish this, we’ll be saying goodbye to Coutino at the very least in January. That’s what happens to clubs who are down the food chain. See So’ton.
Good read. Inescapable conclusion over last 12-18 months is of FSG asleep at the wheel of the club.
How long before we hire someone actually capable of competently negotiating contracts and transfers?
How long before we install a figurehead of meaning in the world game to get a seat at the tables that matter?
How long before we give the manager (whoever it is) the tools he actually asks for?
How long do we persist with the outright aversion to signing players in their prime (unless they happen to play for Southampton of course)?
LFC is a bloody frustrating institution to get your head around at the best of times, but right now it’s a flipping rubiks cube.
Studge, Hendo, Couthino, Ibe & Flanno all signed in the last few months ?
Someone is doing something with regards to contracts & if Raheem had signed up it would all look a lot different,
I’m not saying everything is perfect with it all and as Gerrard pointed out FSG do seem to be leaving it fairly late into contracts before approaching players,
Having said that it always amazes me how players two years into a five year contract are looking to go again ?
It’s a f*cling 5 year contract !!!!
Surely the point of buying young potential is that they will blossom into top class talent like Sterling has. Therefore paying him a wage commensurate with his abilities is good business as to replace him will cost a transfer fee PLUS whatever wages are required to tempt someone here. Much as he’s tried his best to tarnish his reputation the pragmatic solution would be to try our best to keep him by paying top money. Getting Gerrard and Johnson of the wage bill will surely allow for this. Letting him ‘Rot on the bench’ as some critics have wished for would be no use to Liverpool whatsoever and selling him would be unlikely to see Liverpool getting a better replacement. Top work Gareth Roberts as ever.
If the “brand” is to work the club has to win. All previous knowledge I have of them which is limited at best, is that they want to win and have one in the sports arena before. I want to believe that last season was the squad bulk out for more games and that the plan has always been add 2or3 quality players on big wages this transfer window at this stage of the project. Christ, if it isn’t I don’t know what the hell they are playing at coz its now or never really. Statement of intent needed immediately. As for Raheem, he’s one that should be a big part of the clubs future surely fsg. Surely.
Excellently nailed.
this article cranks the handle a bit. kind of hope its true.
http://www.blindreligion.com/fsg-sack-rodgers/
Is this source reliable? I know a couple of journalists were shocked by how close to the sack Rodgers was in November.
Paul. If you need to ask if the blog of an online T-Shirt shop is reliable when it comes to an LFC story, I worry for your safety online!
Is it at T-shirt shop? Ha! A number of journalists are on the record about November, that’s the only reason I asked. A couple of stated that they were shocked when they realised how close he was to the sack, so it has a ring of truth about it, particularly when aligned to Klopp’s decision to quit (he adds hopefully).
That’s a pile of shite, and completely contradicts itself. Did you read more than the headline?
I guess we’ll see, one way or another, next week. I’m all for Klopp but it would seem a tortuous, and rather treacherous way of going about your business. No surprises there, then.
If that story is fabrication then it is created by somebody that should be writing fiction as well as selling T-shirts, if its true then FSG are about to rock the football world, about time too.
We’re always on about players wanting to play in the Champions League until it’s one of ours wants to. We were awful this year in Europe and out of the CL when it was there for the taking.
Maybe Sterling doesn’t reckon Rodgers the manager to get back to the CL. Is that so shocking?
On the contrary – it’s prescient, beyond his years. The CL debacle continued with the Euro League debacle and the domestic cup debacles. We are mismanaged. As they say in law books – Res Ipsa Loquitur: the thing speaks for itself.
Rodgers has critics – like me- who see little or no merit in his continuing. He has lukewarm fans who don’t mind if he stays but would greet Klopp like Jesus. And he has a steadfast but diminishing group who see his as the Messiah who will bring glory after a couple of years of heartache.( No doubt Roy had a similar group. )
I would remind you that the UK recently decided to stay with a political Brendan Rodgers because the Labour Party had no Klopp or better still RAFA to vote for.
It’s simply really if you look at FSG philosophy.Why would you renew a players contract when you have him contracted for another couple of years at less money?
Why would you need to shell out when you’ve got Dunkin Donuts knocking at your door.
Why not build a bigger stadium and sell most of it off to corporate clients?
Why pay big transfer fees when you can limit your exposure by being prudent and cautious?
Why take any chances to develop a product through success when you can increase your investment through prudent sponsorship deals on the back of history?
Why pay any respect to the knob heads who support the team?
And just another thing;why not tell everybody that players didn’t want to come here because they wanted to live in London and Manchester.Nothing to do with wages!
They’ve all got private jets! They could be in Paris,Madrid,Munich within an hour or so and probably in New York by the time they’d read the paper!
We’re falling for it again aren’t we?
Perhaps I should preface this with saying that I’d want Raheem to stay at Liverpool, but for all the talk on here all season about how a football club should still be viewed as someone’s work place, why can’t this be viewed through that prism as well? Putting myself in his shoes, and imagining LFC as a standard office, I can understand why he’d or anyone else would question working elsewhere. Last year the company had a great year, he/you personally had a great year. But one of hi/yours good friends in the department left for another company. And you weren’t that impressed with who was hired to fill the vacancy. And then you find out that the leader of the department is, essentially, retiring at the end of the year. All of a sudden you start to think more about the company and the direction it’s headed and if maybe you should start looking for another opportunity. Especially if you feel like you aren’t appreciated at the company.
Obviously I’m putting this into very simple terms. But if you want to discuss other situations at the club in terms of a normal workplace, then maybe this should be looked at that way a little as well
He’s not on PAYEE. He’s a contractor looking to renegotiate his fee.
PAYE, obviously.
They are all knobs
Sterling and his agent are a given
But the club has a history of repeatedly failing transfer and contract negotiations, they fucked up the Gerrard one, they’re lucky they didn’t fuck up the Henderson one, they certainly fucked up this one
Knobs all over the place pretending to be professionals running a football club
A really well written and interesting piece Gareth, agree on all points. Great read.
As I’ve said elsewhere, if your ‘solution’ to the goal-scoring drought suffered by your team while you persist in using the available strikers in ways not suited to them but to YOUR preferred formation and style is to use Sterling, a 20-year old flank-man (‘winger’), as CF (or Coutinho as a ‘false 9’), then it’s YOUR fault if said 20-year winger gets “big ideas” about title and trophy dreams and ambitions, and the gall to be ‘unsure’ of where the club is going, what transfers it’s going to be making next, etc. When you play him as CF vs Crystal Palace in Steven Gerrard’s last home game as a LFC player you’re just making it worse for yourself.
Hi, sell him we running a business make money out of him and buy better players
Why would a player born in Jamaica ?….John Barnes , Sturridge, Wisdom and Yes STERLING- BLACK GOLD AND GREEN run through those veins and they haved played crucial roles through liverpool history and yes felt the same way, you hypocrytes act as if he is playing under one of Liverpools great managers, he isnt playing under Rafa, KD ,Paisley etc , he is laying under a coach that sees him as a left back in must win games…kissteeth , Sterling is the 1st of many exoduses if we dont get our house in order, as much as we like to bitch that players owe the club something, the club owes the players and fans something too, its called AMBITION !
City and United are interested. We could wedge them – offer him to United for 50 mil but tell Ciry they can have him for 40 mil if they take Rodgers as well…
Football is a business and I support Liverpool Football Club first. In my opinion Sterling and his agent are being completely rational in that they want as much as they can get, footballing careers are short. However let’s not overrate the talent that we have Sterling has pace as his main attribute his shooting is below average, his first touch isnt the best and his vision is questionable. He thrived last year in a system where he wasn’t the primary threat maybe he performs at that level with better players, maybe not. Realistically I dont see him getting that opportunity to start regularly and show his potential at any of the clubs above Liverpool. Considering that there are players out there in Europe who would happily accept half of what Sterling is on. In my opinion the club should call his bluff and name a price and let the chips fall where they may.
All this concern about being a “selling” club is immaterial, there is an infinite supply of hungry motivated talented players who would be able to perform as Sterling has, what is it 7 or 8 league goals. This isnt Maradona leaving Barcelona in the 80s or Ronaldo leaving PSV in the 90s. This is an agent trying to take advantage of a club that is suffering from a leadership crisis. So long the net is cast wider than the premier league I am 100% confident equivalent or better players can be found.
By the way no way in a month of Sundays does Raheem start at Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, Bayern Munich or PSG.
The real knob is Carra apparently, everybody knows that……..