With the announcement that Liverpool have accepted a mammoth £49 million bid from Manchester City for their 21-year-old ‘wonder kid’ Raheem Sterling, you have to sit back and ask yourself whether he’s really worth it?
In short, no, he isn’t worth £49 million.
Does he have the potential to carry that price tag? Yes, one day, but that day is not today.
Currently Sterling is dubbed as England’s brightest starlet, and he does have some qualities that make him a decent young footballer; for example his speed and ability to break free of defenders and his vision to create opportunities for teammates.
However, Sterling is lacking is several areas, most obviously his ability to score goals. He has only managed to find the net 23 times in his 129 appearances in a Liverpool shirt.
The most questionable thing about Sterling is his attitude. He shocked Liverpool fans last season by refusing to sign a new £100,000-per-week contract and has then proceeded to try and force his way out of the club by failing to turn up for training and skipping Liverpool’s pre-season tour.
It’s easy to see why Sterling would want to leave Liverpool, a club that sold their best player in Luis Suarez and replaced him with a hoard of mediocre signings such as Mario Balotelli and Ricky Lambert. Manager Brendan Rodgers also appears to lack ideas.
Raheem has every right to feel like he is better than his teammates, because he probably is. You can’t blame him for wanting to upgrade and actually have a chance of winning trophies.
What Liverpool fans have every right to feel aggrieved by is the attitude shown by Sterling to their club. Liverpool fans are well known for being some of the most committed and passionate so for a 21-year-old kid to just disregard their club and all of its worth for a bigger salary must sting a bit.
Manchester City should take Sterling’s recent conduct as a warning, do they really think that he will treat their club any differently? City recently went through the same ordeal with Carlos Tevez when he refused to return to the club for training and then when he did come back he refused to play. It is surely a situation they will be keen to avoid again.
Liverpool have managed to get themselves an extraordinarily good deal, £49 million for a player who has had only one outstanding season. Even with the inflation for English players, they received a huge amount of money well above the player’s worth.
It will be interesting to see if they spend this money more wisely than they squandered the money they received for Suarez.
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