Remember when Twitter was fun? A place on the internet full of interesting discussion, witty dialogue and pictures of cats?
Those days are long gone: the Twittersphere is becoming a thoroughly unpleasant place to be.
This is a hard lesson Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling has come to realize.
Raheem Sterling deleted a tweet about his England colleague Jadon Sancho but of course folks on social media were quick to screenshot.
Sterling and his former club teammate Sancho are together on international duty at St George’s Park as they prepare for Euro 2020 qualifiers against Czech Republic and Montenegro.
But the Manchester City man sent social media into overdrive when he posted a picture of the two and captioned it: “‘So u actually have a buy back clause?’ #AgentRaz on duty”.
Things didn’t quite work at for Sancho at Manchester City but the 18-year old has since gone onto excel since making the bold decision to head over to Germany and sign for Borussia Dortmund in a £8 million move in 2017.
Fast forward to the present day and Sancho has emerged as a key player for Lucien Favre’s side, scoring eight goals and registering 12 assists in the Bundesliga – the most in Europe’s top five leagues.
What’s more, his irresistible form means he’s not far off becoming a regular in Gareth Southgate’s England XI.
And Sterling, despite being ruined by the 18-year old when he marked him in City training, has offered Sancho some advice – telling him remain grounded off the pitch but maintain that swagger about him when he’s playing.
“Off the field he is a top lad, and that’s the one thing I try to correct him on, off the field, because he’s a great person, just try to help him with advice,” he said.
“But on the field, be as arrogant as you want. On the field you don’t need to be level headed. For me, he just needs to keep doing what he’s doing and think the best of his ability because that ability can take him all the way to the top.”
That arrogance was in full flow during Tuesday’s training session when Sancho sent both Harry Maguire and Jack Butland for hot-dogs. The absolute cheek of the lad.
We hope he’s doing the same to the Czech Republic defenders at Wembley on Friday night…