Raheem Sterling: The Man After Guardiola’s Heart
SteemSports Presenter:@timoshey
SteemSports Editor:@scottybuckets
Pep Guardiola joined the English side Manchester City in the summer of 2016 after a 1 year sabbatical following his domestic successful stint at Bayern Munich in Germany. Although he was unable to deliver the Champions League to the German giants, some still see him as a success because of the way he dominated the German football and set the record for the most wins in a row in Europe’s top 5 leagues. A total of 19 wins in a row. He is on course at the moment to break that (currently on 17 wins), it is left to be seen how far the Spaniard can go with this his brilliant and much improved team.
It should be remembered that Manchester City finished 3rd last season with a mere 78 points while Chelsea ended up being champions with a whopping 93 points. Throughout last season, Guardiola continually spoke about patience, on how the fans, the board and admirers needed to have patience with him because what he was trying to build needed a little time. Little did we know that the patience of which he was referring was just less than a year.
Guardiola managed his side of last season, a side that consisted of a lot of old and fringe players, players that couldn’t play the style of football that was demanded of them. He was at last able to push his team to the Champions league spot, finishing third and edging Arsenal out by just 3 points, who ended up in fifth place below Liverpool. Guardiola moved quickly in the transfer market, and tried as much as possible to conduct his business on time before it became more difficult to get his targets.
Gabriel Jesus joined the team from Brazilian side Palmeiras, Bernando Silva joined from last season French champions Monaco, Benjamin Mendy also joined the side from Monaco, Danilo joined from Real Madrid and lastly, goalkeeper Ederson joined from Benfica to replace the error prone Claudio Bravo. A sum upwards of £200million was spent on squad players. Many will say he spent too much, but I will say he spent wisely because Manchester United spent almost the same amount but do not have the results to show for it.
Manchester City has been by far heads and shoulders over their so called rivals, getting results upon results rather effortlessly asides the win against Southampton where they really had to dig deep and thank Raheem Sterling for his wonderful outside the box curler past Fraser Forster in goal. Lets talk about that man, Raheem Sterling. Sterling has been a sensation for City this season and he is just beginning to live to the hype that was placed on him during his teenage years at Liverpool. At just 23 years, Sterling is the current joint top scorer for City in the Premier League with a total of 12 goals alongside Sergio Aguero. He has also contributed 4 assists and has played just 17 games so far this season. This season, Sterling has been known for popping up very late in games to land a huge blow on oppositions by scoring very late goals.
Tottenham: 90 minutes, Goal
Huddersfield: 84 minutes, Goal
Southampton: 90+6 minutes, Goal
Watford: 89 minutes, Goal
Bournemouth: 90+7 minutes, Goal
Everton: 82 minutes, Goal
Raheem Sterling has won his side 6 very important points against Bournemouth and Southampton this season in the Premier League which has gradually helped him gain confidence and also cement his place in the starting line-up of the soon to be ‘team to beat’.
Do you think Raheem Sterling will be the man to fire Manchester City to the EPL title and take it a step further to the UEFA Champions League? Or you think other guys like Kevin De Bruyne, Sergio Aguero, Leroy Sane, David Silva etc. will be more influential?
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Under the stewardship of Guardiola, raheem sterling is beginning to show glimpses of the potential most people knew he always had, he needs to continue improving in this manner to become a world class player.
Raheem sterling had a quite disastrous season last year and a lot of people were calling for him to be benched or even worse sold, credit to him for working hard and the fruits of his hard work are now clear for all to see.
I would still argue that De Bruin is the best player in this amazing Manchester City. But again it's Guardiola's magic that is making everybody at City fly.
Exactly, its all about Guardiola's brilliance. Give this team to Mourinho and he will use them to park the bus. Also considering the fact that same Mourinho didn't even give De Bruyne a chance to perform in Chelsea, Guardiola deserves all the credit coming his way. I'm just particular about one thing, he should leave the season long unbeaten record to Arsene Wenger. He can keep the title, but leave that one.
Cheers.
I think he and the others would be the core that takes Man City to where they would want to be by the end of the season. I think De Bruyne has been amazing, like wise Silva, Sane and Aguero. Infact, that team is already the team to beat. Good piece @timoshey.
It is an almost perfect team for the Premier League standard though, they are yet to be really tested in the Champions League. The way Gundogan slotted in perfectly during Silva's absence says a lot, though I still don't think anyone can play that De Bruyne role other than himself. Time will tell. And yes, they have earned that status of being the team to beat.
Thanks bro.
What I like about Raheem is " Raheem Sterling has won his side 6 very important points against Bournemouth and Southampton this season in the Premier League which has gradually helped him gain confidence." and one more is "Raheem Sterling for his wonderful outside the box curler past Fraser Forster in goal."
I can help but gave the credit to guardiola for making sterling great again. In premiership, there is no one stopping that man city team. They are fantastic.
They go into every game with the mentality that they can win it, no matter how long it will take. A team with that mental strength is very dangerous