From A Boy To A Man – Raheem Sterling Has Come A Long Way Since Making His Debut For Liverpool
There was a time when Raheem Sterling was struggling majorly at Manchester City. The club was never renowned for developing players or for extracting the best out of them and that is exactly what was happening with Sterling too. He had the potential and the skill but he lacked a guiding hand that could give him a nudge every now and then. Luckily for him, all that changed once Pep Guardiola took charge.
As we all know, Guardiola is no ordinary manager. In fact, for the first time, City had a world-class manager who excels at developing and nurturing players to bring the best out of them, while also ensuring that they fit into his style of play. Basically, the former Bayern Munich manager knows how to mould players and that is exactly what he did with Sterling.
From being a frustrated figure on the field, Sterling went on to become a formidable presence capable of dominating even the best of opponents. He has been phenomenal for City so far and there seems to be no stopping him.
It does seem quite daunting to be a part of a team with a celebrated attack like City’s, which includes the likes of Sergio Aguero, Leroy Sane, Gabriel Jesus and Kevin De Bruyne. Yet, Sterling has managed to carve out a spot which only he can fill. His overall game itself has come such a long way under Guardiola.
For example, when Sterling first joined City, he was quite weak when it came to shooting accuracy but now he rarely ever misses his target. In his first season for the club in the 2015/16 season, the youngster notched up 6 goals in a total of 39 appearances in the Premier League. This time though, in just 11 appearances for the club in the league, Sterling has scored 8 goals. He has already surpassed his debut season’s tally and we still have a lot of games ahead of us this season – which does go on to show that he is well on his way to register some of his best numbers for City.
The player has already picked up 5 Man of The Match awards – 3 of which have come in the Champions League. Besides that, he has also scored 4 goals in the elite European competition, which increases his overall season tally to 12 goals. Sterling averages 2.3 shots per game and boasts of a pass success-rate of 82.5%, according to WhoScored. All these numbers show only a part of his true impact for Manchester City.
From here on, the road will only get better for Sterling. He has established himself as a mainstay in this exciting club and judging from how things have gone so far, he might just lift the coveted Premier League trophy with City this time.