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Liverpool players returned to training on Monday in an attempt to turn their vacation bodies into ones that could once again function on a football pitch once the new season rolls around in August. Prior to that new season starting, though, the club jet thousands of miles away to delightful Southeast Asia and Australia to play in a series of pre-season friendlies in order to help grease those creaky joints and condition those wheezy lungs before their visit to Mordor on August 9th.
The club made a pre-emptive declaration on Monday that young Raheem Sterling would indeed be expected to fulfill his team obligations and join the rest of his teammates on the tour. Tour squads usually include far more players than will be named to the twenty-five man roster for the new season, but barring any tournament commitments or post-tournament vacation time, first team members are largely expected to participate in full.
Except, of course, when they totally don't want to and you can't make them, Dad. Whether it was the club's doing to make Sterling look petulant or another of Aidy Ward's half-cocked plans, someone let slip that the young forward has no interest in joining up with his team.
Going AWOL on your team is not likely to be a spectacular move no matter what one's motive, and players have in the past made such feelings known only to then show up just in time to get on the team bus to the airport. The only way Sterling doesn't end up on the tour is if Liverpool accept a Manchester City bid by the end of the week, but until such time as that happens, Sterling will likely be found camped out under a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, listening to Tinie Tempah and wishing he didn't have to go on this stupid family vacation, ugh.
