…Raheem.

The Liverpool fans haven’t yet ‘turned’ on Raheem Sterling. Even though their young superstar is at this moment still refusing the new contract that will keep him at Anfield. They haven’t gone into death-threat-mode like they did when Steven Gerrard spoke of leaving all those years ago. But it maybe just a matter of time. And of goals. Because Raheem keeps scoring them and that puts the fans in a bit of a quandary. How can you be outwardly hateful to someone who is so vitally important to your team? Ok, its arguable that no Liverpool player has ever been as important as Stevie G, but this current team is struggling to be a top 5 side. It is not blessed with a multitude of superstars and so to give Raheem a hard time would indeed be a case of stealing the hubcap that feeds you. (Liverpool mixed metaphor).

100,000 pounds a week may sound (to lower class, ‘working people’ type scum) to be a lot of money to offer a player. But he’s not a kid. He is 20 years old and only has one Range Rover. Which, in footballing circles, is probably cause for ridicule. I don’t know. And I’m not sure that the money is everything in this case. Ok, he could get more than his 5million a year maybe at Arsenal (who are desperate for his signature) or pretty much anywhere he chose, but that would also offer him Champions League football. Which is, as all Spurs fans know to their eternal and continued cost, a massive lure for talented players. Though with the destruction of Manchester City’s seaons continuing, perhaps he can achieve that with his Anfield mates.

Then there’s the off-field antics. Firstly Raheem was filmed smoking from a shisha. Ok, nothing really wrong with that, its only inhaling fruit juice, probably counts as one of your 5-a-day. And then yesterday he was filmed sucking Nitrous Oxide from a balloon until he virtually collapsed. Which, although not illegal, is a bit stupid. Though probably very funny, as laughing gas tends to be.

These events are just kids having fun. But they do go against the football club’s code of conduct. Quite rightly. So my question for Mr Sterling is not why he partook in such activities, I have no problem with either, but why be so vain, so mindless, so bloody stupid, to allow or encourage videos to be taken?

Though before we judge him too harshly, we need to assess his mind. In an interview for the Times they asked him what he’d read recently. War and Peace? Wuthering Heights? A Tale of Two Cities?? No, his reply was that he’d been reading a lot online about Kim Kardashian going blond.

Where’s the rule that all footballers have to be embarrassingly, almost terminally thick?

Happy Tuesday, whatever he (and his hateful agents) decide for his future.

A xxxx