With Manchester City leading West Ham United 2-1 on Sunday, David Silva pushed the ball outside him for Raheem Sterling, who was left with just Adrian to beat. It wasn’t a simple finish by any means, but his strange drag wide of the near post came as a reminder of the unconfident Sterling of last season, whose finishing and final ball never lived up to his potential. A few minutes later, though, he was calmly rounding Adrian and nudging the ball in from a narrow angle for his second goal of the game. His grin as he bounced away in celebration said everything about his impressive start to the season.
After England had gone out of the Euros to Iceland, when Sterling seemed to have been made the designated scapegoat and faced - often bizarrely personal - attacks from various media outlets, his camp began to fight back. He was looking forward to playing under Pep Guardiola came the line, because he felt the former Barcelona and Bayern coach would given him more individual coaching than Manuel Pellegrini had, that the environment would be more like the one in which he had thrived at Liverpool under Brendan Rodgers.
There is an obvious response, which is to wonder if that was the case why he left Anfield in the first place, but he is still only 21 and there are far older, more experienced players than him who have made slightly foolish moves for the sake of money. And if he hadn’t played under a laissez-faire coach before, he probably didn’t realise how much he needed the sort of direction Rodgers had given him.
There is a slightly more sympathetic but still sceptical response, which is to think that Pellegrini offers an easy excuse, but the fact is that Sterling does seem to be rediscovering his form under Guardiola. He’s maybe not quite yet at the level he was in the 2013/14 season when he was a vital part of Liverpool’s attacking trident with Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge as Rodgers almost pulled of an implausible title triumph, but he once again looks as though he could get there again. And he is only 21.
Before Sunday’s game, Guardiola played down his own role in Sterling’s improvement. “Raz now feels the love - and believe me, that is the difference,” he said. “I mean, do you think that I can improve his skill in just one-and-a-half months? No.
"It is not about me. What I am is the coach and so I try to help. Like all managers in the world, I try to create a good environment, to make them comfortable, to take the best out of them, and to help the players to play good. But Raz is showing his quality because, maybe last season, he played one weekend and then didn’t play the next. When a player isn’t playing he feels, ‘The coach doesn’t love me.’ When a player doesn’t feel loved, then it is difficult for them.”
Already this season in the league, Sterling has two goals and an assist; he only managed six goals and two assists in the whole of last season. His pass success rate has gone down - back, oddly, to close to what it was in his Liverpool days. Perhaps, with the pressure seemingly lifted, he is trying more adventurous balls. Key passes (1.1 to 1.3) and shots per game (1.7 to 2.3) are up, but where there’s been a dramatic rise in in the number of successful dribbles per game (1.3 to 3.3). His profile is far closer to his Liverpool stats than it was last season.
The whole picture is of a player who is now confident in his abilities again and is prepared to take risks in a way he wasn’t last season. It’s early days yet and the sample size is miniscule, but the suggestion is that, however he’s done it, Guardiola has got Sterling going again. At 21 there should be plenty of development still to come.
What do you make of Raheem Sterling's start to the season? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
