Man united make daring enquiry about sterling

LONDON – Manchester United have lit the fuse on what will be the transfer saga of the summer by contacting Liverpool to express interest in signing Raheem Sterling.

That United feel confident enough to ask about Sterling offers an insight into how tempestuous his eventual exit from Anfield will be, whether it is in a few months, next season or at the end of his contract in 2017.

Sterling has already incurred the wrath of supporters for the manner in which he is seeking a move, but if he is prepared to go from Liverpool to United the jeers he has encountered thus far will sound more like wolf whistles.

United are the first club to make contact with Liverpool since Sterling made his frustrations public, but they are unlikely to be the last.

Manchester City are known to be admirers and have been awaiting the outcome of the meeting between Sterling’s agent, Aidy Ward, and Liverpool chief executive Ian Ayre, which is scheduled for today.

There are suggestions that City are prepared to open the bidding at £40 million (S$83.7 million). The bid would not be enough to sign the player, but it would suggest the £50 million asking price might eventually be met.

No player has moved directly from Liverpool to Manchester United in 77 years, since Allenby Chilton was signed to play at Old Trafford in 1938.

It has been almost as long since anyone went the other way. It was in April 1964 that Bill Shankly paid £25,000 to secure the signature of United’s Phil Chisnall.

In the 51 years since Chisnall headed west to Merseyside, players have moved between Tottenham and Arsenal, Celtic and Rangers, and Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Carlos Tevez, Terry Cooke and Denis Law have all switched allegiance between Manchester United and Manchester City. But between Liverpool and United there has been nothing at a senior level (though Scott Wootton did take up a place in United’s academy aged 16 in 2007 after turning down an offer to remain at Liverpool’s).

Sure, Peter Beardsley, Paul Ince and Michael Owen all played for both clubs. But they allowed a suitable diversion between engagements, which is why the news that Sterling — of all people — should be the subject of interest from United is the proverbial powderkeg.

There are some histories, it seems, reckoned unwise to trample across. As Gabriel Heinze discovered in 2007. Manchester United agreed to allow the player to seek a move from Old Trafford after he became disillusioned. But when it was discovered that his representatives had been in discussion with Liverpool’s then manager Rafael Benítez, he was told in no uncertain terms that he could go anywhere but there.

United’s then manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, insisted the club’s supporters would never forgive him assisting the team-building of their most significant rivals. Despite a conciliatory offer from Crystal Palace, Heinze was sold elsewhere.

Ferguson himself was said by those who played under him to be almost obsessed by Steve McManaman. Roy Keane recalls that every match against Liverpool would be preceded by the manager’s repeated insistence that the only way to stop them was to stop McManaman. Yet, however much he admired him, Ferguson never made a bid for the winger. Just as he never did for Steven Gerrard or Jamie Carragher or Fernando Torres. This despite the fact that he was a firm believer in Shankly’s two-pronged first rule of the transfer business: Make sure you weaken a rival at the same time as you strengthen your own hand.

Becoming the target of the inevitable vitriol that will pour in their direction is not an easy burden to carry. Few could flourish in such circumstances. Not every player has the mental strength of Sol Campbell or Luis Figo.

History suggests Ferguson had a point. Certainly for Chisnall himself, the move was not one garlanded in rosettes. Although he was transferred at a time when the Liverpool-United rivalry was nothing as scabrous as it has become, things did not work well for him. He might have played in Liverpool’s first European game — an 11-1 aggregate victory over KR Reykjavik in the European Cup — but that was just one of nine outings he made for the first team.

After three years of underachievement he moved to Southend in 1967, before retiring to work in a malt loaf factory in Urmston.

It is not the kind of future Sterling is presumably anticipating. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH