When Raheem Sterling was named the Football Writers Player of the Year last season it was not entirely due to his football.

Virgil van Dijk was given the honour by his peers at the Professional Footballers’ Association, a judgement vindicated when he was Uefa’s best in 2019 and emerged as favourite for the Ballon d’Or.

In Pep Guardiola’s eye even Bernardo Silva pipped Sterling as Manchester City’s player of the season.

The justification for Sterling picking up his award was as much for his impact off the pitch as excellence in City’s title defence, football writers acknowledging his hugely-important anti-racism stand. It was a noble gesture by the FWA and - based on this worthy criteria - no-one was going to argue with the reasoning.

Sterling’s public image has now been completely transformed, helped enormously by the radical change in media coverage turning him from some kind of bad boy - which he never was - to the opposite extreme where there appears to be a stampede by journalists to present him as a saint. Every time Raheem gives his boots or shirt to a spectator in the crowd the image goes viral on social media. Commendable as that it is time to make this point: it is not Sterling’s engaging with fans after a match that makes him stand out from the crowd - plenty of high-profile players do that. It is his world-class talent that we should be screaming above the rooftops about now.