Liverpool manager, Brendan Rodgers, has seriously criticized Raheem Sterling’s behaviour after footage emerged of the Liverpool forward apparently taking nitrous oxide saying this sort of behaviour was unbecoming of a professional sportsman. The England international was pictured smoking a shisha pipe in a Sunday newspaper and images have now emerged of him appearing to pass out having allegedly taken the legal substance otherwise known as laughing gas. Rodgers will speak to Sterling privately before deciding what action to take with a player who is in dispute with Liverpool over a new contract, but the Liverpool manager admitted it was not the behaviour expected of a professional athlete. “When you are professional sportsperson at the top level of the game, I don’t think it is something you should be doing. It is as simple as that,” the Liverpool manager said. “But I will speak to him and see what he says about it. I want players here who are super-professional and focused on their football and I know he very much is. Young players will make mistakes but as long as they learn from them, that is important.” Rodgers claimed that any disciplinary measures would be “something we will deal with internally” but denied the recent controversies surrounding Sterling are proving a distraction. “You can see by the way he plays that it is not distracted. He is a kid who is very strong willed and strong minded,” said Rodgers. “He should have had a hat-trick tonight. His performance was outstanding. Him and Philippe Coutinho were at a world-class level.”
A top football tipster is convinced that whatever Raheem Sterling was smoking, and it is quite a lot judging by recent pictures of the Liverpool winger in action, it was too much for Newcastle United to deal with as their “dark” period continued at Anfield. With this victory, Brendan Rodgers’ team kept their outside hope of Champions League qualification alive with an ultimately comfortable victory and they moved to within four points of fourth-placed Manchester City with goals from Sterling and Joe Allen but for John Carver it was the fifth consecutive league defeat which has left mounting problems:Moussa Sissoko was sent off late on for an over-the-top tackle on Lucas Leiva that prompted his second booking of the night when it could have been a straight red and Newcastle are starting to have to worry about what is happening below them in the League as thirty-five points do not look enough to avoid the relegation battle.
During the match, both sides were wearing black armbands to mark the 26th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster on Wednesday: On the 15th April 1989, overcrowding occurred on the terraces of Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium at the start of an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest football clubs and subsequently 96 Liverpool fans tragically lost their lives.