Former Liverpool youngster Ryan McLaughlin believes the Reds "threw Raheem Sterling under the bus" when he was just 17.
The two teenagers were on a pre-season tour of America in 2012.
Brendan Rodgers had taken over at Anfield after a stellar few years with Swansea and famously clashed with Sterling.
Liverpool were filming a fly-on-the-wall documentary which captured the confrontation between the pair.
And McLaughlin, who had a front row seat for the heated debate, felt it was harsh of the club to air the dispute.
“I just don’t understand why the club threw him under the bus with that,” he told Goal.
“For a young kid, that could knock you completely. He was 17, and it made him out to be something he wasn’t. I look back and think ‘imagine that had been me’.
"Your family is watching it, you’d be devastated. Those things should have been kept behind-closed-doors.
“Rodgers calling him out, I’ve no problem with that. He’s the manager. But to air it? I felt that was wrong. It was poorly managed.
"It’s probably something that stuck with Raheem for a long time afterwards, which was unfair. He’s had that tag, when in reality anyone who spent time around him would tell you what a nice lad he is.”
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Sterling burst on to the scene in 2012 but his relationship with Liverpool fans went south when he declined the offer of a new deal and subsequently headed to Manchester City in 2015.
He has been met with a hostile reception at Anfield ever since but McLaughlin claims he was always destined to reach the top.
“Raheem Sterling was special, even then,” he added. “It doesn’t surprise me at all what he’s gone on to achieve.
“The difference with him and any other player I played with in youth football is simple; he was so smart on the pitch. We’d all be getting taught about which run to make and when to make it, but he’d already know.
“He’d make 10 of those runs a game, those curving runs from the left wing in behind the defence, timed to perfection. He still does them now.
“He was always through one-on-one with the keeper. People talked about his dribbling, which was frightening, but it was his movement off the ball which made him so special for me.
“You see it now, how many times is he there in front of goal to score? It looks easy, but it comes from that movement, and he’s had that since he was 16.”
