The former Liverpool player’s agent has criticised Brendan Rodgers today
It’s been a couple of months since Raheem Sterling’s controversial move up the motorway to Manchester City, so you’ll have to forgive Sterling’s agent, Aidy Ward, as he’s probably feeling a bit ignored with little attention since the window closed.
Today the City player’s agent has opted to speak out about the ‘real’ reasons that Sterling chose to leave Liverpool. And it can basically be summarised in two words: Brendan Rodgers.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Ward said: “I was being criticised and my back was against the wall a bit, so I would have changed the way some stuff came out into the public domain, that’s my only regret.
“I became the bad guy, that’s how I was portrayed. It started from the PR behind Liverpool. There is no issue with the fans there, they don’t know the full story, and there are lots of good people at Liverpool.
“I had no problem with (chief executive) Ian Ayre for example. I have no issue with anyone but Rodgers: he had a massive job with massive funds. How did he do? Good coach, but as a manager I didn’t like certain things about how he dealt with Raheem.
“Fifty per cent of the players would probably tell you Brendan is not a good manager, but he is a good coach.”
Prior to being sacked by Liverpool a couple of weeks ago, Rodgers was heavily criticised by Liverpool fans for playing players out of position, constantly tinkering with tactics throughout games and targeting average players.
But the criticism coming from Sterling’s agent is unlikely to mean much to Reds fans who, despite what Ward says, remember all too well the dirty tactics employed as the player looked to engineer a move away.
What is true, though, is that Sterling would’ve been a perfect fit for Klopp and his agent seems to agree. He said: “The new Liverpool manager probably would have been a great fit for Raheem – passionate, disciplined in the right way, new ideas, not afraid of trying new things,” he said. “He’ll do great at Liverpool.
“Would Raheem under Klopp have been a good scenario? Yes, 100 per cent, definitely, mainly because of the person Klopp is – the passion, the drive, the emotion, wanting to achieve.
“Raheem has all of this, but you won’t always see it outwardly. Working with Klopp – that could have been great. He’s going to get the best out of those players. It could have been a dream come true.”
I think he’s probably right to be fair, Raheem is looking pretty good when playing with the likes of Silva and Aguero, and at only 21 there could be big things to come from him. I think the style of football Klopp likes to play would’ve suited him better at Liverpool, but I still think you got one of our best player in James Milner so it’s swings and roundabouts. Utility player like Milner who are above average in every discipline are not easy to find we were mad to let him go.
We didn’t “let him go” you fool, that’s the kind of rubbish I’d expect from ignorant fans of other clubs or the dopes in the media but not a blue who should know the reality of the situation. We offered him a very good contract ages before his deal was due to expire, he just didn’t want to sign it and wanted to move. Which is all absolutely fine incidentally, no issue with him choosing to move on, that’s just the way it is, but we definitely did not let him go.
We offered him a contract he didn’t want to sign, we didn’t give him enough game time, that was the managers choice so we let him go. If you want to argue semantics and call me a fool that’s fine but at the end of the day if we wanted to keep him hard enough he’d have still been there, end of.
He says it broke down because they wanted a buy out clause . So it would have probably been in the region of 40-50 mil , which city would have met . So why does this idiot think sterling would have still been here ? Sure Rodgers didn’t help the situation but aidy just trying to improve his image which has been ruined