Raheem Sterling

[The_weatherman]

Wonder what will happen here, could Sterling be having second thoughts about his agent? Ward has put Sterling in a difficult position, low on confidence and allies. The best thing Sterling could for his career is sack Ward and sign again for Liverpool. He is already on a slippery slope and if he continues this form he could miss out on the Euros next summer.

[Exiled_red]

Wonder what will happen here, could Sterling be having second thoughts about his agent? Ward has put Sterling in a difficult position, low on confidence and allies. The best thing Sterling could for his career is sack Ward and sign again for Liverpool. He is already on a slippery slope and if he continues this form he could miss out on the Euros next summer.

What makes you say this? Have I missed something?

I assume nothing has changed, as long as he has serious options of teams in the CL that are willing to make a move for him I would assume him will go if we get a reasonable fee for him, if not it drags on for a year or two. I guess the question is are there teams who are interested in him who would be willing to put an offer together, the papers suggest he isn't short of options, but who knows how much of that is true.

[Doc_Piptorious]

Wonder what will happen here, could Sterling be having second thoughts about his agent? Ward has put Sterling in a difficult position, low on confidence and allies. The best thing Sterling could for his career is sack Ward and sign again for Liverpool. He is already on a slippery slope and if he continues this form he could miss out on the Euros next summer.

No sympathy for him. It is mostly, if not all, of his own making. Blaming the agent is an easy out for him, but is his agent also to blame for the various things that saw Sterling end up in court? Is his agent to blame when Sterling puts in half assed performances on the pitch?

If Sterling wants to be seen as the proven player that his own words suggest he thinks he is, then he has to own any consequences that come his way from his actions.

It is quite possible that a big part of the current silence from Sterling and his agent is down to there not being a rush of offers for him, especially for the sort of wages that he turned down at Liverpool let alone higher wages.

Don't really care what happens with him tbh. If he stays and works hard then great. If he gets sold for good money then great. But I think he has shown his colours and will have to put up with being viewed in a certain way from here on in regardless of whether that is at Liverpool or at another club.

[Doc_Piptorious]

http://gfycat.com/SparklingIcyAmericanalligator

Wonder what he said about Sterling- look at his reaction

Maybe Higgins dropped another "******" comment like he did a few years back during a radio interview.

[Exiled_red]

No sympathy for him. It is mostly, if not all, of his own making. Blaming the agent is an easy out for him, but is his agent also to blame for the various things that saw Sterling end up in court? Is his agent to blame when Sterling puts in half assed performances on the pitch?

If Sterling wants to be seen as the proven player that his own words suggest he thinks he is, then he has to own any consequences that come his way from his actions.

It is quite possible that a big part of the current silence from Sterling and his agent is down to there not being a rush of offers for him, especially for the sort of wages that he turned down at Liverpool let alone higher wages.

Don't really care what happens with him tbh. If he stays and works hard then great. If he gets sold for good money then great. But I think he has shown his colours and will have to put up with being viewed in a certain way from here on in regardless of whether that is at Liverpool or at another club.

While I agree to a certain extent you can't blame the agent for everything, if you are paying the agent/advisor what is probably a decent percentage of his not insignificant salary you are almost certainly going to take his advice. As an inexperienced player taking advice from just one source he probably isn't going to recognise bad advice until he is critisised for his actions.

Regarding clubs being interested, I very much doubt that a whole host of clubs are going to come with offers now, the clubs who are interested won't want to start a bidding war with months of the window to go. If he does move this summer I expect it will be fairly late in the window (sometime in August) before a deal is done. Also with his contract situation and the fee we are likely to want, I can imagine clubs who would genuinely like to sign him might be tempted to waiting another window, his value will have dropped significantly due to his contract and if we don't play him regularly could drop further.

[lickedlollipop]

http://gfycat.com/SparklingIcyAmericanalligator

Wonder what he said about Sterling- look at his reaction

[redmike65]

The lack of a dust cloud of activity around Sterling is interesting, Utd were clearly BSing, City's supposed bid is no such thing - just the spewings of a S*n hack. No one else has picked it up.

Maybe its just a case of it still only being mid June and things will crank into life later in the summer but Aidy Ward might be starting to wonder what he has to do to get some genuine interest.

[Doc_Piptorious]

The lack of a dust cloud of activity around Sterling is interesting, Utd were clearly BSing, City's supposed bid is no such thing - just the spewings of a S*n hack. No one else has picked it up.

Maybe its just a case of it still only being mid June and things will crank into life later in the summer but Aidy Ward might be starting to wonder what he has to do to get some genuine interest.

Easiest way to have garnered genuine interest would have been for his client not to have played the final three or four months of the season looking like a sulking child.

[Robbie-9-Fowler]

The lack of a dust cloud of activity around Sterling is interesting, Utd were clearly BSing, City's supposed bid is no such thing - just the spewings of a S*n hack. No one else has picked it up.

Maybe its just a case of it still only being mid June and things will crank into life later in the summer but Aidy Ward might be starting to wonder what he has to do to get some genuine interest.

I suspect there has been no bids yet, probably teams feeling out the club, big deals such as this rarely take off this early into the window.

[The_weatherman]

Easiest way to have garnered genuine interest would have been for his client not to have played the final three or four months of the season looking like a sulking child.

I agree, which is where I think the agent at least plays some part, he's been with him for the last couple of years and Sterling is young and stupid. He could do a Marsh on Ward and blame his troubles on him

[Doc_Piptorious]

I agree, which is where I think the agent at least plays some part, he's been with him for the last couple of years and Sterling is young and stupid. He could do a Marsh on Ward and blame his troubles on him

Well if the agent takes some of the blame for Sterling on the pitch, do we then always need to be asking what the hell were senior players like Gerrard, Skrtel etc doing at training and during games?

Surely there is an onus on such players to try and nudge a younger player in the right direction as it would be in their own interests as well as that of the younger player if the younger player was performing well.


And if we agree that the senior players should be giving guidance, then we have to also bring in the manager, the coaching staff, and any one else at the club who is in regular contact with the player.

And what about Sterling's mother? and his family and friends?

Seems to me that the agent, and he does come across as an utter ****, is the easy goat that ran way in all of this and Sterling takes very little by way of responsibilty for his own actions on and off the pitch.

There are plenty of other young players who are in the 19 to 22 age bracket that are highly rated, and plenty of them in the recent past. All of them had agents too, but most managed to get on with having their on pitch stuff being what they were rated for.

I don't see stories about Kane at Spurs. Gotze at Dortmund kept putting in performances even when running down his contract. Hazard at Lille at an even younger age than Sterling is now.

Even look across Stanley Park and we have Lukaku yapping away about wanting to join a bigger club but for all the moans about him from Blues he is still putting the ball into the net.

The way I see it is if Sterling wants to talk about what he has achieved in the game to date, and wants to talk about winning stuff, and about what he deserves/needs, then he can be the one that takes the kudos or stick when he succeeds/fails in backing up his own talk. He can also take the stick or kudos for what he does off the pitch because he may only be 21 years of age but that is still old enough to know basic right from wrong.

But what he cannot do is try to have anyone else take the lionshare of the credit when he ****s up. Am sure if he was flying on and off the pitch that we would not see loads of credit being given to his agent for it, so the same should apply when it is going the other way.


He should take it as a life lesson. A person needs to own what they do, and if they want to constantly hide their own failings behind others then no complaints can be made if a bad reputation sticks. Same thing applies to pretty much all of us save for the fact if we were ****s at 21 we did not have an agent to blame our asshole actions upon.

[Maxiedge]

England's best player for me. I think he's class (for an English player )

Such shame we're in this situation but **** it, it's what it is.

[BobTheCharmer]

On current form I can't see anyone bidding more than £30m. I can't see us selling for that. Therefore he stays. Just needs to sort his head out.

[The_weatherman]

Well if the agent takes some of the blame for Sterling on the pitch, do we then always need to be asking what the hell were senior players like Gerrard, Skrtel etc doing at training and during games?

Surely there is an onus on such players to try and nudge a younger player in the right direction as it would be in their own interests as well as that of the younger player if the younger player was performing well.


And if we agree that the senior players should be giving guidance, then we have to also bring in the manager, the coaching staff, and any one else at the club who is in regular contact with the player.

And what about Sterling's mother? and his family and friends?

Seems to me that the agent, and he does come across as an utter ****, is the easy goat that ran way in all of this and Sterling takes very little by way of responsibilty for his own actions on and off the pitch.

There are plenty of other young players who are in the 19 to 22 age bracket that are highly rated, and plenty of them in the recent past. All of them had agents too, but most managed to get on with having their on pitch stuff being what they were rated for.

I don't see stories about Kane at Spurs. Gotze at Dortmund kept putting in performances even when running down his contract. Hazard at Lille at an even younger age than Sterling is now.

Even look across Stanley Park and we have Lukaku yapping away about wanting to join a bigger club but for all the moans about him from Blues he is still putting the ball into the net.

The way I see it is if Sterling wants to talk about what he has achieved in the game to date, and wants to talk about winning stuff, and about what he deserves/needs, then he can be the one that takes the kudos or stick when he succeeds/fails in backing up his own talk. He can also take the stick or kudos for what he does off the pitch because he may only be 21 years of age but that is still old enough to know basic right from wrong.

But what he cannot do is try to have anyone else take the lionshare of the credit when he ****s up. Am sure if he was flying on and off the pitch that we would not see loads of credit being given to his agent for it, so the same should apply when it is going the other way.


He should take it as a life lesson. A person needs to own what they do, and if they want to constantly hide their own failings behind others then no complaints can be made if a bad reputation sticks. Same thing applies to pretty much all of us save for the fact if we were ****s at 21 we did not have an agent to blame our asshole actions upon.

I said some part, of course Sterling should bear the responsibility himself but I'd say Sterling is a young man who needs much guidance, probably more than he's getting, at least off the pitch. Ward also has Berahino on his roster and he was also getting into various troublesome situations. Sounds to me Sterling has had a tough upbringing so maybe he doesn't get that much support and guidance from his family. But I'm not taking the responsibility from him, don't take like that. I just think we need various amounts of guidance in life, like his former teacher said of Sterling that he'll either be playing for England or in jail by 17, I reckon a kid like that doesn't need an agent like Ward.

Still, if he's sold for a decent wedge I'm all for it, just think he's not selling himself very well.

[Exiled_red]

On current form I can't see anyone bidding more than £30m. I can't see us selling for that. Therefore he stays. Just needs to sort his head out.

£30m is a decent amount of money given his contract situation and recent form. People have been mentioning £40-50m, there is no way we'll get that, I would say probably £35m is the max we could hope for with £25-30m being more realistic. The question is do you take the money or risk losing him on a free.

We could try sorting his head out, but for that to work he need him to get a different agent, which he may not be willing to do.