Sterling Thrown to the Wolves

From the outside, Sterling will be criticized for apparently being honest with his national team football

manager and stating his tiredness. That's fine, the typical thing in this scenario for any manager with any decency would be when asked why their player is not in the squad would be to say "We felt hes been working really hard and we wanted to rest him and bring him on later on in the game to have more of an impact". Did Hodgson do this? No, he knew exactly what he was doing which is more than I can say about

the way he runs his England team. Sterling has been abused and verbally demolished by the public and media all for being honest rather than being too proud, and playing a match where he wouldn't of been very effective. What fans don't realise is the sheer amount of discipline and hard work is required from these athletes to play at the top level look at Ronaldo it has taken him years to build that temple that he calls his body, where as it will also take Sterling a few more years to manipulate his body to be accepting of the day to day demands of the highest quality football.

Sterling will come back a better player after all of his brief criticism, he will have a tougher backbone and a thicker skin, especially when he has top quality professionals around him such as Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney to guide him. Sterling was due a rest he has been one of the top performers int he premier league this term and in his last couple of Liverpool fixtures it was clear he was tired and beginning to show signs of a burn out. Young stars are expected to give everything they have week in, week out which is just impossible its too much too soon. Messi adapted his game to make fewer dribbles and bursts forward in the first half to save himself in the second half. Young Raheem is 19 and will soon find his rhythm, with the right people and guidance around him he has the potential to be the best player in the world.

The scariest thing about all of this is that, all of the best players who played for Liverpool were quickly linked with moves away from the club. Suarez to Barcelona and Real Madrid, Gerrard to Chelsea and Real Madrid and Torres to Chelsea. Hopefully Sterling will be able to recognise everything Liverpool has done for him and stay at the club and give it more time rather than jumping the gun which is not always guaranteed success