Looking back at Raheem Sterling’s Arsenal debut

Here, exclusively, is the story of that day, as told by the people who were there ...

Raheem Sterling, Liverpool player

Obviously I’d done the interview with the BBC a few days earlier, so there had been a lot of publicity. But I was feeling pretty relaxed about the situation, and I certainly hadn’t made my mind up one way or the other. I liked Liverpool, the city and the club, and while the contract negotiations had stalled everybody thought we’d find some kind of solution. Then Brendan told us the team, and I was at right wingback again.

Calamity Flan, Sterling’s lawyer

Arsene Wenger, Arsenal manager

How did we know about the clause? (chuckle) I do not recall the incident.

We never found out how they found out. We were a family. We were the Liverpool Football Club family. And within our family, like within every family, we had the good eggs and the bad eggs. The good eggs were all pulling in the same direction, and the bad eggs were rocking the boat. And when the bad eggs stopped pulling in the right direction and started rocking the boat, then we were up, excuse my language, shit creek, and worse, we had no paddle. It wasn’t my job as manager to know where the paddle is. It was my job to make sure that the players knew that I trusted them to be able to find their own paddle, and to make sure they trusted each other to have a spare paddle if one went missing. But we found ourselves in a situation where we were up, excuse my language, shit creek and the bad egg had thrown the paddles over the side, well, then it’s impossible to ... I’m sorry, what was the question again?

Joe Allen, Liverpool midfielder

We got back into the dressing room at half time and we were winning, one-nil. Raheem had got the goal: he picked up the ball on the right, danced past three men and slammed it into the net. I remember thinking at the time it was odd that he didn’t do his normal celebration, but just assumed he’d realized it looked silly. Then about a minute after Brendan had begun his half time team talk, we noticed. Raheem wasn’t there.

Raheem Sterling

I made sure I was the last Liverpool player off the pitch at half time. I’ve never walked so slowly in my life. Then, once I was sure everybody else was ahead of me, I ducked into a side room. Five minutes was all it took. Afterwards, when it was all signed, force of habit meant that I nearly went to the away dressing room by mistake. Now that would have been awkward.

Arsene Wenger

It was an exceptional effort by all of our staff. We found out their team an hour before kickoff, and by half time, we had the negotiations complete, the contract ready, the kit printed up. We gave him the No. 9 shirt, of course. He insisted. He thought that nobody would ever dare play a No. 9 at wingback.

Adam Lallana, Liverpool midfielder

The first moment I noticed something was wrong was when one of our lawyers burst into the dressing room and cut Brendan off mid-speech. If you’ve ever spoken to Brendan you’ll know he doesn’t like to be interrupted, so I knew something big was happening. But he was very calm: this lawyer was whispering into his ear and he just nodded, then pointed to me and told me to get ready to come on. We just assumed Raheem had somehow injured himself on the way back to the dressing room. I nearly did that once. Slipped on some orange peel. Dangerous stuff.

Paul Burrell, Emirates stadium announcer

I thought it was a joke at first. Some kind of delayed April Fool. But no, they insisted it was right, so in the end I just went with it. “Coming off for Liverpool and coming on for Arsenal, No. 31 and No. 9, Raheem Sterling.” And then he jogged out! I’ve never heard a crowd so uncertain of what to do with themselves.

Giles Barrett, Arsenal fan

I laughed. I’m still laughing now.

Calamity Flan

It was all perfectly legal. In fact, if anybody did anything wrong, it was Liverpool: according to the clause, Raheem’s contract became void the moment he was named at wingback for the third game in a row, and he was a free agent. We did briefly consider asking the FA to dock Liverpool points for fielding an ineligible player, but decided that was probably best left.

Gunnersaurus, Arsenal mascot

RRRRROOOOOAAARRRRR! RRRRWWWAAAAR! RRRRRRRRROOOOOAAAAAAARRR! (crunching of bones) GRRRRRRRRRR! (tearing of flesh) AAAAAAAAARRRR! GGGGGGGGRRRRRWWWAAAR (screams, abruptly cut short) GRRRRRRR ... what do you mean, this isn’t useful? I’m in character here.

We’d only found out a few minutes before we came back out. Mesut had picked up a knock in the first half and when Arsene told us what was happening, we were all buzzing. A few of the lads knew Raheem from England duty and obviously we’d seen all the rumors, but for him to just turn up like that, it was crazy. At half time! Obviously, the only thing we trying to do in the second half was get him the ball.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t notice for the first few minutes. I’ve never been that observant, and it wasn’t until they won their first corner that I realized who I was grappling with. So I asked him what was going on, and he said it was complicated but he was an Arsenal player now. So I started to say: well, that sounds quite simple, actually, but by that point the corner had been taken and he’d run off and everyone was shouting at me.

Raheem Sterling

Obviously I’d had no time to work on set plays with my new team, so I was just trying to make a nuisance of myself. I don’t get many headed goals from corners, for obvious reasons. So that was the moment I knew I’d done the right thing.

Arsene Wenger

He was wonderful. Everything we could have hoped for. Scored twice, won a penalty: by the end of the game our fans were singing his name. We all knew, on the bench, that here was a player who could take a club to the next level. That could turn third and second places into first place, that could win a club their first Champions League. And we were right. Sadly.

At the time they said Sterling was a waste of money. Typical City, paying over the odds. How foolish they look now. Ahaha. Ahahahahahaha! Ahahahahahahahaha!