Not long since Manchester United’s polite inquiry into the availability of Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling became public knowledge, Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger offered his views on the saga.
Wenger was asked if he thinks Sterling has behaved badly. Given that the player employs Aidy Ward to represent him, it’s hard to make the case that Sterling has been blameless in his Liverpool contract stand-off.
After all, if Sterling didn’t like Ward’s work, surely he’d not longer employ him as his agent.
Ward’s duty is to help the 20-year-old player charter the best course through unfamiliar surroundings. Sterling is not hymned for his ability to negotiate. The business side of football is Ward’s job.
Would Sterling cut the best deal for himself sat amid the money-men and lawyers? Of course not. The agent is there to navigate the process and keep his client from making a mistake.
However, a critical mistake has been made somewhere along the line because the impression of Sterling is no longer simply that of a bubbling talent but of a vain, greedy, unreasonable and self-aggrandizing child who epitomises all that’s wrong with the modern game.
We got an insight to Ward’s ego when he told TalkSport: “The story has been blown somewhat out of proportion. Raheem and his representatives have a meeting scheduled with Liverpool later this week, and we will take proceedings from there.”
That might be the first use of the Royal ‘we’ in football. And as for blowing things out of proportion, are we to believe the stories emerge as if by magic?
After all, this was the circumspect and measured Ward came out swinging just yesterday:
“I don’t care about the PR of the club and the club situation. I don’t care. He is definitely not signing. He’s not signing for £700,000, £800,000, £900,000-a-week. He is not signing.”
He then added a few bon mots on Jamie Carragher’s assertion that Sterling should “keep his mouth shut and get on with playing football” (as well as dumping his agent):
“Carragher is a knob. Everybody knows it. I am not worried. Worried is making a decision not knowing what is going to happen. Every premier league club will make a bid for him.”
They won’t all bid, but any club that does will have to deal with Ward and his ego.
So here’s Wenger making a point of not blaming the agent nor the talented player who has voiced his admiration for the Gunners and is also purported to want a move back to London.
“I am not sure that it is the player causing the problem. Most of the time it is not the player who causes the problems,” said the Arsenal boss.
“They [the player and agent] come as a package that is true, but the problems do not always come from the player – sometimes from the package.
“I don’t want to single out people but discretion is the best way to deal with things because once it goes public it is very difficult to mask, you have so many opinions.”
It went public when Raheem Sterling appeared in that unauthorised BBC interview back in April. That set the tone.
Wenger adds: “I can understand the media are interested in that but for us, honestly, it is always adding difficulties once its [the transfer talks] public.
“You know how it works, as well as I know. The agent’s interest is to put the story in public.
“Personally, even for the player, I think always the best deals we have done is when it was quiet, calm and secret.”
Fat chance of that this time. If Arsenal want Sterling, it’ll be noisy.