text: No footballer has ever been late for kick-off because he was tied up negotiating a new contract. So, from the start, Raheem Sterling’s explanation for the end of his conversations with Liverpool did not stand up. It isn’t the talks that are the distraction. It is the thinking. No player is sat in an office haggling over image rights, only to check his watch at 3.30pm and bolt out of the door. A player may feel uncertainty about his future. His brain may whirl over where he will play next season. Liverpool? Arsenal? Abroad? Yet postponing the process to the end of the season doesn’t solve that issue. If anything, it makes it worse. If Sterling wanted to stop thinking right now, he could sign his new deal or tell Liverpool to come back in a year. He has, after all, got more than two seasons left on his existing arrangement. Raheem Sterling has turned down a new deal with Liverpool and put off contract talks until the summer . Sterling (right) has confirmed that he rejected an offer of £100,000-a-week to stay at Liverpool . The 20-year-old gave an interview to the BBC on Wednesday giving his reasons for his decision . So all Sterling did, the day his advisers ended negotiations until May at the earliest, was complicate his affairs. It is not as if he will be able to forget about the decision in the coming weeks, particularly as his stance appears to have damaged his relationship with Liverpool’s supporters. Without doubt, they were dissatisfied with his attitude even before this week’s ill-conceived BBC interview. As Liverpool’s hopes of a Champions League place next season became increasingly remote with the home defeat against Manchester United, Sterling bore the brunt of the dissent. In truth, his performance was little worse than any of his team-mates that day - but he is the one who is seen as disloyal, as rejecting at the first opportunity the club and manager that have best developed his game. Liverpool and Brendan Rodgers have done well by Sterling. They made him a key player in last season’s title near miss, got him to the World Cup. He owes them a little more respect than has been displayed in recent weeks. He owes them enough to know it is downright rude to talk of being flattered by Arsenal just days before the teams meet. Liverpool are entitled to think it is equally flattering for a club of its stature to offer a salary worth more than £5million annually. Apparently not. Sterling (left) shakes hands with Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers during training on Thursday . Sterling has played in various positions this season under Rodgers - including as a striker and at wing back . Among the reasons advanced for Sterling’s coldness towards a long-term commitment at Liverpool has been Rodgers’s recent decision to play him at right wing back. This has been a result of injuries and suspensions, rather than a long-term strategy - but it does raise wider questions regarding the mindset of English players, and why many might find their pathway blocked. Would a young player brought up through Ajax’s system, for instance, be so affronted by this temporary change? Why is it the English in particular that see football in straight lines? Sterling has played as a centre forward, a No 10, a wide midfielder and now a wing back. Isn’t this the versatility that we envy in the best foreign teams? Isn’t this an education? Why is it that England produces pigeon-holed full backs or midfielders, and not footballers? Shouldn’t a player - certainly one who wishes to command in excess of £100,000 a week - be able to fill in anywhere? Indeed, shouldn’t he welcome that endorsement from his manager? Arsenal progressed to the 2006 Champions League final at a time when Ashley Cole was injured. In his place through the knockout stages, home and away against Real Madrid, Juventus and Villarreal, was the 22-year-old French midfielder Mathieu Flamini. He hadn’t played full back in his entire professional career, he said. But he never complained, and Arsenal didn’t concede in any of his six matches. Midfielder Mathieu Flamini (right) was used a full back in Arsenal's run to the 2006 Champions League final . Flamini isn’t a creative in Sterling’s mould - but then right wing back isn’t the same as left back, either. Sterling is still operating as a winger when Liverpool attack. Flamini, a central midfielder, was used strictly as a defender. It wasn’t as if Arsene Wenger was gung-ho in those games: three ended goalless, two in 1-0 victories. Flamini performed with exceptional discipline. One imagines that midfielder Emre Can didn’t sign for Liverpool expecting to be part of a back three. Rodgers first used him as a defender this season against Burnley in December, and he has remained there ever since. Can is German, though, the product of a more intellectually vibrant football culture. World Cup-winning captain Philipp Lahm eagerly switched between holding midfield and full back. Midfield lynchpin Bastian Schweinsteiger began his career as a right winger, while Thomas Muller can play centre forward, support striker, attacking midfielder and winger. Every player will have a favourite position but in England these desires become entrenched. Even the most gifted, such as Steven Gerrard, never seemed entirely at ease with his versatility. Maybe Sterling should spend his time thinking less about his contract and more about the type of footballer he wishes to be; maybe about the type of footballer who can demand more than £100,000 a week. Because that player goes wherever his team needs him — and that makes him worth the coin. Sterling's Liverpool team-mate Emre Can (centre) has been used mainly in defence, despite being a midfielder .
target: Raheem Sterling has turned down a Liverpool deal worth £100,000-a-week .
  20-year-old gave an interview to the BBC on Wednesday over the issue .
  JAMIE CARRAGHER: Four reasons why Sterling has got it wrong over deal .