RAHEEM Sterling had the chance to showcase his talent to would-be new employers at the Emirates few days after that ill-advised and ill-timed interview which he granted the BBC.

But the Jamaica-born England international left Arsenal stadium a devalued prospect after a very poor audition.

While Sterling cannot be singly blamed for another abysmal Liverpool showing against one of their Top 4 rivals, his overrated value was brutally exposed in the Reds 4-1 chastening, a result that might have been different had the misguided 20-year-old diverted Lazar Markovic’s pass into an open goal.

Granted the pass could have been better. But when you just turned down a sumptuous 100k weekly pay, about 300% rise in weekly wages, or when you insinuated 180,000 quid weekly take-home would not be enough to persuade you to commit your future to a club, then you should be tucking home a chance into a yawning net from barely eight yards.

Alright Liverpool were under the couch from the off; but they survived. And had Sterling converted the best chance of the first half to give the Reds an undeserved lead, the story could have been different. But he failed so much that even when he won a penalty for the Reds late in the second half, it was almost meaningless as the Gunners had already wrapped up the points in the last eight minutes of the first stanza which saw them fire three beauties past the hapless visitors.

And if Sterling needed any lesson about taking games by the scruff, he got a brutal one from Arsenal’s teenage right full-back Hector Bellerin who weaved his way past Liverpool defenders before curling a beauty beyond Simon Mignolette; it was the first goal Liverpool would concede on the road in four months! Sterling, we must also remember, frittered away three clear-cut chances at Old Trafford last December as the Reds fell 3-0 to their bitterest rivals.

For such an unfinished product to try holding a huge club like Liverpool to ransom is unthinkable and unacceptable. Sterling’s head is probably swayed by the fancied talks of interests from Chelsea, Real Madrid, Man City, Barcelona, Man United and Bayern Munich (Arsene Wenger has recently quashed any Gunners interest in the self-styled wonderkid). But like United legend Phil Neville and a host of other pundits agree, the Liverpool forward would not make the starting line-up of any of these elite clubs.

“I don’t think he (Sterling) would get into Chelsea’s team with Diego Costa there,” said Neville. “Would he make Manchester City’s team with Sergio Aguero there? Manchester United with Wayne Rooney there? I was reading about this last April. This is a 20-year-old who should just be concentrating on playing football.”

Neville went on to advise the Reds, an advice which I totally agree with: “I think Liverpool have to play hardball with Sterling. As for Sterling, it is fine having agents, but at some point you have to take ownership of your own career and say: ‘I want to sign a contract. I am at the right club at the right time.’
At the moment, he is at the best club who are helping him to develop and giving him a platform to play. They have stood by him and given him a good contract. He has 27 months left on that contract.

“In two years, if he wants to play with Real Madrid and his career goes in the right direction, he will still be able to do that. But at the moment he should get on with playing football,” Neville submitted in a chat with BBC.

In addition to Neville’s advice to the Reds, I’d like Liverpool and Brendan Rodgers to ignore any chat about Sterling’s future henceforth. Liverpool should fold the offer on the table and wait for the player and his agent to accept the terms in that deal or no deal.

If Sterling wants, he can continue playing at a measly 35,000 quid-a-week for the remainder of his two and a half years contract or he should do the sensible thing by accepting the club’s terms. Otherwise he should be sold to anybody stupid enough to shell out at least 40 million pounds on an unproven kid with a truck-load of attitude.

The hottest prodigy in English football today is Tottenham’s Harry Kane. And he most probably doesn’t get 30,000 quid per week. Yet that is a red hot striker who will probably scoop the two most coveted individual awards in the English top flight this season, awards which are some distance away from Sterling despite playing in his third season at the top echelon of the English game.

Perhaps he should be reminded too that at 20 years, he is extremely lucky to be playing regularly for a massive club like Liverpool and even luckier to be nurtured by Rodgers, a manager who should take a bigger chunk of credit for Sterling’s career progress than the player himself.

If he opts to jettison these two big advantages in the summer, rather than try persuading him to stay, Liverpool should collect his expected hefty transfer money and rid themselves of Sterling’s and his agent’s disruptive tendencies. The good thing for the Reds is that they hold all the aces in this saga and, like Neville advises, they should play hard ball with the youngster and his manipulative agent.