Melwood’s car park was busy last Wednesday. As if a crime had taken place, a white tarpaulin - impressive in its length - screened the complex’s inner entrance, which, rather mundanely, is in the process of a facelift.
The long-serving attendant, Kenny, was there as usual wearing his high-visibility jacket, springing out of his cabin to speak to incomers he did not recognise. For those he did, as usual, there was a warmly delivered hand signal, reflecting his ease.
One person, who was expected to show, did not. Between 9am and 10am, when the rest of the squad were getting changed while listening to loud music or, instead, enjoying breakfast in the quieter surroundings of the canteen upstairs, Melwood received a phone call. It was Raheem Sterling, informing his bosses that he would not be appearing, for he had been taken down by a sudden illness in the night.
This is a story with a significant subplot. Sterling had sat down with Brendan Rodgers in two separate meetings over the two previous days. It is alleged that in the second one, he told the manager that he does not wish to play for Liverpool anymore and, indeed, that he did not wish to partake in the pre-season tour of south east Asia and Australia, which began on Sunday with a long flight to Bangkok.
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ANALYSIS Where will Raheem Sterling fit in at Manchester City?In the discussions, Sterling did not lay a transfer request, a decision which would have decreased the earnings of both he and his agent Aidy Ward while simultaneously speeding up the process of a move to Manchester City, who have agreed to pay up to £49m, including add-ons. From all parties, it had been a game of brinksmanship and now the saga is finally over, each one will want to feel unbowed to the other.
Liverpool are shorn of an exciting young player but have received arguably the highest fee in the history of football for potential. It depends on your definition of potential. Manchester City have what they want, too: an improvement on Jesus Navas, an England international that will enhance their quota of home-grown players.
And what does Sterling have? Materialistically, everything he wants, certainly. He will still have the world at his feet. He will probably win titles in the seasons that follow.
Sterling, though, has incensed match-going Liverpool supporters and for those who follow the fortunes of the club on social media, the fume-o-meter has reached unprecedented levels.
Sterling is not too young to be loved by the Kop. Robbie Fowler was his age when 31 goals in a season earned him the status of God, a name he is still referred to 20 years later. There are some mitigating circumstances but Sterling has not done enough yet to even earn him his own song, something that seemed to frustrate him in an interview published by Sunday Times magazine in April. When he returns to Anfield next season, it is imaginable that scorn will cascade from the terraces in the direction an ex-player like it never has before.
It might be the same at other grounds. He has alienated himself from neutrals, too – who now view him as a money-grabbing brat, just like Ashley Cole, whose reputation - despite being England’s most consistently reliable performer until his international retirement – when you track it back, was sullied first by the manner with which he left Arsenal for Chelsea.
Those who know Cole personally say it has not defined him as a human being. Yet a perception exists that will never go away. For Sterling, it could be the same: a footballer whose actions off the field have out-weighed his performances on it in the eyes of a public, which never forgets. Sterling is 20 years old. He probably doesn’t understand this now. But he might soon.
It has been put forward that Ward, the agent, has been acting on his client’s wishes. Much has been written about Ward. Far too much. There is a theme with his clients: young lads who have arrived as footballers despite the absence of a father figure in their lives. Most fathers would preach caution over ambition, that the grass is not always greener. Publicly, at least, Ward now appears as a Fagin character from Oliver Twist, with Sterling as Jack Wild, the not so Artful Dodger, in the mood to slip bank notes from the pockets of others at any opportunity.
Despite the unsettling, distracting and prolonged nature of the episode, Liverpool held firm until the end. Rodgers had even hoped Sterling would play against a Thai All-Star XI on Tuesday after being dragged halfway across the globe.
That was before a deal was reached on Sunday night.
Sterling returned to training on Friday but, ultimately, he did not stick around long. The next time he turns up at Anfield, on the Manchester City team coach, will be next March. The ill feeling will not have subsided and there will be plenty of Liverpool fans, like Kenny, waiting to greet him at the gates. And, collectively, the hand signals will probably reflect something else.
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