Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling has been racially abused on social media after posting in response to their defeat to Leeds.
Sterling started in the 2-1 defeat, and had a disappointing game by his own high standards. After the game, he took to Twitter to say: "One to forget."
Most of the replies were supportive, encouraging a clearly downbeat Sterling to keep his head up. City defender Aymeric Laporte, who missed the game through injury, posted: "S*** happens bro, head up."
However, among the replies were at least two cowardly racist messages from accounts with no name and an unidentifiable profile picture. At least one of those users quickly made their account private after other supporters condemned and reported the unacceptable message.
The abuse comes as a number of Premier League clubs have seen players subjected to vile racist abuse by anonymous accounts - often after defeats. There are increasing calls for social media companies to do more to identify the account holders and report them to the relevant authorities.
Championship side Swansea this week confirmed they would be coming off social media for a week to send a message that racist abuse of this kind will not be tolerated. Birmingham and Rangers responded with similar social media blackouts.
