A couple of weeks ago Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling was getting it in the neck for being greedy – although the fact of the matter remains that he is still on his original contract of £35,000 a week when he could have tripled his money some time ago. Now he is being criticised for the way he spends his downtime after being pictured apparently experimenting with shisha pipes and nitrous oxide balloons.

Yes, the footballer-as-role-model debate is back on the agenda. According to the Daily Mail – who else? – Sterling’s alleged dabblings with “hippy crack” sum up all that’s wrong with football. Really? Leaving aside the severity or otherwise of Sterling’s alleged transgressions in search of a legal high for a moment, or that fact that hippy crack appears to be a complete misnomer, has anyone any right to expect sensible behaviour from a 20-year-old from a fractured family background attempting to enjoy himself at a party without the aid of alcohol or stronger stimulants?

The player’s father, already absent from his life, was murdered in Jamaica when Sterling was nine years old. In the circumstances it appears the Liverpool and England winger is doing well to carve out a successful career in football, and it ought not to concern the nation’s moral guardians too much if he tries out a few things that many normal, non-millionaire partygoers will have tried by their early 20s.

Liverpool will have a view on one of their leading players being splashed all over the papers looking blissfully silly. That’s fair enough. But let’s keep a sense of perspective. Trying a legal substance that is said to make you “relaxed, euphoric and giggly” is hardly in the same league as being charged with assault or rape, being photographed on a casino carpet covered in £50 notes, drink-driving or even parking in a disabled space, all instances where prominent footballers have brought themselves and their clubs into disrepute in recent years.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Brendan Rodgers criticises Raheem Sterling over nitrous oxide – video

Sterling probably needs to grow up and be a bit less naive, though the same could be said of Wayne Rooney, who is fully formed and completely streetwise yet still found himself embarrassed a few weeks ago when a picture of him being floored by a punch in a play boxing session in his own kitchen became public. It is much harder for anyone to keep anything private these days, almost impossible for famous footballers with a tabloid price on their heads, even when they consider they are only out among friends.

Until Sterling becomes a repeat offender, or unless there is any evidence his social peccadilloes are having any effect on his game, he deserves the benefit of the doubt and a little less lecturing. As his manager wisely said when the pictures surfaced, kids of that age are bound to make mistakes, it is how they learn from them that matters.

It is ridiculous to pretend that a 20-year-old footballer with the world at his feet should automatically know how best to handle himself at all times. Sterling’s job is to be professional, and hopefully he is learning. He is possibly more in need of role models himself than anyone foolish enough to see him as some kind of moral example.

Some footballers make very good role models, as it happens, but not everyone can be David Beckham or James Milner. Sterling, it is safe to say, is not going to be the next James Milner. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. Everyone is different, even footballers. Extremely rich, perhaps over-privileged young individuals who leave themselves open to public criticism are always going to get both barrels, but it is what Sterling does next that matters. Football is big enough to take a little individuality, even when it is misguided. Not being James Milner is not the crime of the century.