Raheem Sterling is now the most expensive English player ever.
Let’s not pretend that Queens Park Rangers will not get 20%, but the fact Manchester City are shelling out £49million for the 20-year-old is something.
No, I’m not unaware that football involves a lot of crazy figures. But there is something about English players. Often overhyped, overpriced, yet average even when at their peak.
A quick glance at the top 10 most expensive English footballers, you will come across names like Andy Carroll, Darren Bent, Luke Shaw and Joleon Lescott. Carroll never found hit the heights at Liverpool – and it’s not as if they are quite lofty these days. He plays his football at West Ham these days. Lescott is currently on the books of perennial strugglers West Brom. Shaw battled with fitness and form during his first season at Manchester United. Bent leads the line for Derby County in the Championship.
The reason why City have paid premium is two-fold. He is young and he is English. Manuel Pellegrini’s desperation to stock up on homegrown talent, has seen him chase Aston Villa’s Fabian Delph too. Not the type of talent he would be keen in. But the FA’s demands boxed him into a corner. Before Sterling arrived, the only players who qualified as homegrown were Joe Hart, Gael Clichy and third-choice goalkeeper, Richard Wright.
But that is not my business today.
Neither is it Liverpool’s. They have held out for a princely fee and will seek to reinvest in their attack.
It is all City’s business. They have committed £100m in transfer fees and wages for Sterling. The forward might have not fixed his price, but his agent surely agreed the lucrative £180, 000-a-week deal – an astronomic increase in the £35,000 he got in wages at Anfield.
Loyalty no longer exists in football.
Sterling is no longer the darling of the Anfield faithful, his relationship with Brendan Rodgers is broken and he has ignored advice from Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher. He didn’t fancy becoming a Liverpool legend. It is a money game now.
Mathieu Valbuena, who swapped Marseille for Russia last year, famously said: “I weighed up the pros and the cons and I am very pleased I took this option.
“They made a serious financial effort to sign me and that was an important part of my choice. I won’t lie, financially Dynamo Moscow have put me in a fantastic condition.”
Such refreshing honesty. It is incredibly rare for players to turn down bumper offers, but they prefer to put forward other reasons, so they are not seen as money grabbers.
Whether the excuse is illness or injury, whether it’s ambition or affinity, or he prefers Manchester to Merseyside, Sterling has crossed over to the league of high-speed, high class young footballers.
That is sorted. He needs to step up his game – this time I mean football. He has not done enough like Memphis Depay for instance, who arrived at Manchester United this month, armed with a healthy resume. Sterling needs to ramp up the numbers – goals, assists, etc. Or else he will follow the predictable trajectory of English players: Emerge. Hype. Flatter. Crash. Burn.
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