Football
ESPN staff 9y

Thierry Henry: Raheem Sterling risks destroying his life and career

Raheem Sterling has been warned not to let his advisors ruin his career with bad advice by Arsenal legend Thierry Henry.

Sterling, 20, is in the middle of contract negotiations with Liverpool which have been conducted in the public eye. A well-placed source have told ESPN FC that the forward wants to move away from Anfield and has already rejected a new £100,000-a-week deal.

But Henry, who admitted that he went through something similar early in his career, believes that the youngster must disassociate himself with anyone who doesn't have his best interests at heart.

"I think we all know that he's been receiving some bad advice," Henry, now a pundit, told Sky Sports. "You can't go out there and talk about your contract in the press. You have to respect your fans, respect the club that you play for.

"If you want to leave Liverpool or not, when you make the decision about leaving or staying, then do it. Don't discuss yourself in the paper."

As a young player at Monaco, Henry was being tracked by Real Madrid but the striker turned them down and chose to move to Juventus in 1999 after spending more time in France before later making his name at Arsenal.

"I went through the same thing. When I was young I had a problem with Real Madrid and Monaco because some guys that were around me were putting stuff in my head," he added.

"I lost my football, mentally I wasn't there anymore, I wasn't concentrating on anything, and therefore it looked like I was going to have a good career and people were questioning me when I hadn't even started my career!

"So it's the same thing with Raheem Sterling. To an extent you can blame the agent, adviser, whatever you want to call them now [but] you need to be a man about it also, you need to be able to say, 'Enough, you're destroying my life, you're destroying my career.'"

Henry added that he would like to see Sterling join Arsenal, despite the interest of Manchester United.

"He's a great product for Liverpool and he's going to be a great product for England," he said. "I would be more than happy to see him play for Arsenal but he's still a Liverpool player.

"We all know he's a Londoner, and we know Arsene [Wenger] is interested in him."

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