http://grantland.com/the-triangle/raheem-sterling-liverpool-contract-2015-premier-league/
We can all scoff at Arsenal but whilst we have spent 15 years talking about a new stadium they went ahead and built theirs. They are now showing a bit more ambition in the transfer market too. Top players want champions league football EVERY season, something else Arsenal can offer that we can't. We made lots of excuses but the fact is Sanchez chose them clearly ahead of us. Looking from the outside we're just not seen as a big player right now. We qualified for the CL, sold our one world class player who had only recently signed a huge deal, then armed with the best part of £100m went shopping at Southampton!!! Last season he was team mates with Luis Suarez and Steven Gerrard, who will it be next season? James Milner? Danny Ings? Fabian Delph? The mind boggles.
The timing of this interview is appalling and it leaves a bad taste in the mouth but it's hard to argue with some of the things he's saying. And why wasn't he offered a better contract in the summer? Probably because we're trying to do this thing on the cheap aren't we? If he leaves it will be terrible. Far more damning and damaging than when Torres or Suarez left. This is a kid and he's already sussed us out. If we can't even tie a 20 year old to the club then what does that say about us? It's easy to paint him as the villain in all of this but we haven't managed to sign Henderson up yet either have we? So I don't necessarily buy this line that it's just the club trying to drive a hard bargain. We're shelling out £450k a week on Johnson, Sturridge and Gerrard for God's sake. Lambert has been earning almost twice as much as Sterling all season long, think about that for a second. No wonder Henderson and Sterling might be feeling sold short a little bit. But this is clearly not just about money because putting these talks off has cost him a fortune, it's also about ambition and it should really wake one or two people up that a young boy seems to be more ambitious than one of the world's biggest clubs. The truth hurts sometimes though and nobody wants to accept it so they blame the player and his agent for being greedy or start comparing him to Scott Sinclair. Dear oh dear.
There's also the term 'seniority'. Sterling proved he was worth the new contract he'd just signed, last season. However, he then has to
earn another, which he hasn't done this season. Last season he needed to justify his new contract and the manager's and board's faith in giving him it. He did that.
I pull up Rodgers on a lot of things, but he's bang on the money (no pun intended) when he says that giving a young player, however talented or potentially talented, too much money too soon is dangerous, as it can make them think "they've made it", and then stop working, stop yearning to improve and learn.
That's a frailty of the human being. We can be too easily satisfied.
Look how he's hyped, how he's lauded. It's difficult enough for that not to go to his head. A huge contract at the age of 20 will just reinforce all the wrongs.
If he had stepped up this season and been the main man in the absence of Suarez and Sturridge then the kid deserves it. He didn't, he doesn't.
Dude's spot on when he says playing the different positions will prove to be invaluable as he hopefully develops, but Dude and I aren't Raheem's age. Experience and life years under our belt have taught us that. Brendan is trying to make up for Sterling's lack of that in the way he's handling him.
There's far too much expectation of praise and reward whilst no desire to shoulder responsibility and accept the blame when it's correctly placed at your feet, side by side with the former, in life now.
I f@ck up, I deserve my @ss to be kicked and I need to be humble enough to learn from it, understand what I need to do differently and achieve it next time. If I do well, that's what I was aiming to do in the first place, so mission accomplished. I don't expect a statue and the freedom of the city.