I think he (and Mahrez) would be better if they switched sides, isn't Mahrez left footed? Sterling would be better without having to cut back just to use his stronger foot
Is Sterling the best english player at the moment?
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Most players these days play like that though, sure Rashford is right footed same as Martial both are not good on the right
I agree it's the in thing for most players and teams today, although I'd argue City looked most fluid with Sterling on the right and Sane (now gone) on the left
Mahrez is best as an inverted winger, but recently you see Sterling and Mahrez cutting in with no options providing width, allowing the opposition to focus on a smaller area.
Salah and Mane cut in a lot but at least they have TAA and Robertson stretching the pitch. Ditto for Shaw and Wan Bissaka providing the width while Rashford/Greenwood cut in.
Pep should play the team in a more conventional system with his fullbacks overlapping instead of them coming inside. Also give Mahrez the freedom to move away from wide areas like he use to at Leicester instead of him hugging the touchline. Play KDB from the other side so he doesn't clash with Mahrez.
Greenwood is better than Rashford though
See that is why City paid so much for full backs, while most money was wasted if the winger is cutting in the full back has to offer the overlap every time. The bad thing for City is Mendy is shit
Don’t get carried away now. First season is always easier remember Rashfords first season ?. While it’s obvious Greenwood is more talented and has more about his game I wouldn’t be confident about calling a 18 year old better just yet.Greenwood is better than Rashford though
City have this too. Their full backs may not always provide the overlap, but their inside forwards (Silva and De Bruyne) do. They're forever creating overloads in wide areas.
Especially considering Rashford was probably our best player pre lockdown.
Of course but Greenwood does not play for the national team. I think people are talking about the best player in the context of England national team . I just think people go overboard with Sterling, the pundits once said he was better than Messi at one point. Listen, he may be a good player but I wouldn't pay my money to watch him. His football doesn't excite me.Greenwood is better than Rashford though
This thread was created in November 2018. It is testament to how good and consistent Sterling has been. Comparing him to Rashford over the same period and coming out with the conclusion that Rashford is better is ridiculous to me.
As of right now, it would be Rashford. His form is not as good as Sterlings.
Club form it’s Sancho. England form I’d still go for Kane although Sterling has been better for England in more recent times. He and Kane actually formed an impressive partnership. For me Sterling has some sort of mental block and is streaky. He had a run of 10 games before lockdown without a goal or assist and was pretty poor. He was terrible for England for a very long time too. Personally I’d have more faith in Rashford doing something special at a tournament than any other player England has.
Massive fan of Rashford, but Sterling’s productivity over this period of time has been brilliant.
He’s also managed to be quite a likeable player, which given the clubs he’s played for is remarkable!
That level of productivity is where we want Rashford to get to, focusing on the output, and that’s what Pep did with Sterling. Rashford is getting there and improving all the time. Sterling is now in the prime of his career.
Next year, to have Rashford, Sterling, Kane, Greenwood and Sancho as attacking options is wonderful for England - of course the hard part is finding how they fit in together, but very exciting.
Yes. I don’t know how anyone can even argue otherwise.
27 goals in all comps. His best return to date. Will most likely pass 30 goals. Also has close to 10 assists. 30 goals and 10 assists near enough and people still questioning him?
Of course EVERY player has similar contributions in a Pep team mind.
And he doesn't really take penalties
Of course EVERY player has similar contributions in a Pep team mind.
And he doesn't really take penalties
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ridiculous numbers
Wouldn't Maguire and then Walker be more expensive?
I hear this a lot about Sterling being better than Kane in our recent qualifying campaign. I get it and I'm not going to try to argue that it's objectively wrong. They were both radiant, individually and as a world-beating duo. Their chemistry is also surprisingly great for two national team players from rival clubs.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that our best result in qualifying (7-0) was achieved in the one match from which Sterling was banned. Kane was electric, with the absence of his partner seemingly making little difference. I interpret this to mean that our average level of talent was just too high in every area for our opponents in that group (even though it was one of England's more difficult groups in recent times) such that it didn't really matter who the specific personnel were or how well they played relative to each other.
Kane set records and managed big achievements in that campaign: first player from any country to score in every qualifier for a Euros, most goals ever scored for England in a qualifying campaign, most goals of any player (12; 2nd - CR7 on 11), highest GPM/MPG ratio of any player (56 mins/goal; 2nd - CR7 58), most goal contributions (GA) of any player overall and per minute (17 GA; 2nd - Sterling and Dzyuba on 14). If we have a player who might be even better, that's fecking fantastic for us England fans!
Obviously, my personal opinion remains that Sterling hasn't ever been better than Kane for any extended length of time (overall, in whatever way you can realistically compare the two -- they're ultimately very different players both in terms of role and position and in terms of strengths and weaknesses). But I'm happy to say that Sterling now looks entirely like he belongs alongside Kane in the England front line.
After the qualifiers, the main point of interest for me was just how dominant our attack was as a unit: 4.7 goals per game. I think Belgium came second in that metric and it wasn't even close -- something like 4.1. Our attack is special. I hope it isn't wasted like the last time we had something special brewing.
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Probably is,
When he is on his game he looks frightening, I just hope he can consistently turn it on while wearing an England shirt.
When he is on his game he looks frightening, I just hope he can consistently turn it on while wearing an England shirt.
Because he dissapeared for long parts of the season? I kinda think they're justified.
You know who else put up statistically good numbers? Lukaku. You know who also use to dissapear for long periods at a time? Lukaku. You know who else is questioned? Lukaku.
Unironically this. At least somewhat.
I don't believe that Pep magically makes players better in a way that invalidates their individual achievements. I don't even rate Pep that highly tbh. Pep's fortunes have meant that he will never have to go out and prove he can do it with a non-dominant side in an elite league, which would be the final piece of the puzzle for me (that and maybe a CL final with City). Still, if you're playing in a squad like the one at City for a manager like Pep, you're going to get more than your fair share of chances to shine.
When you look at Sterling's stats, they paint a picture of an unexceptional goalscorer who scores a lot because he gets a lot of chances. When you look at him play, the picture is of a player who will realistically never be a great, clinical finisher but who has good awareness and positioning to exploit the natural volume of opportunities that come with the territory. Similar thing with most of his play: he has obvious deficiencies but he compensates for a lot of those with other strengths of similar magnitude.
When I put it all together and try to look at him outside of a City context, I see a great - maybe world class[1] - player but with compromising flaws in areas that actually matter in his position. His raw finishing ability (or lack thereof) is the most obvious.
[1] This is such a tricky term. Without a comprehensive definition, I don't think it should even be used in conversation. Otherwise, it just leads to people arguing over whether to apply this arbitrary tag of "world class" when the participants all have orthogonal personal conceptions of what it means (which they rarely bother to state as priors, leading to endless confusion).
To me, a world class player is in the top 5 or so in the world in his position -- and would be at least considered as a candidate for a standard 23-man tournament squad to play for Earth in the Planets League. That number 5 is somewhat flexible, however, because it also depends on the generation. By definition, you can never have a generation without players who are the best in the world (these are the guys you'd pick for the Planet Earth team) but if a generation had half a dozen players on Messi's level, you would obviously have more than 5 world class players at that point. As a more pragmatic formulation of the Team Earth scenario, you can also consider the players that any club in the world would happily sign and actually play, even if only as a substitute.
But that's still not a clean, clear, objective definition, which is why GOATs, BOATs, ATGs, strong/weak generations and world class ratings are all such nebulous and needlessly contentious subjects.
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A harsh but apt comparison, though I'd argue that advanced, modelled stats like xG have always been able to expose Lukaku to an appropriate extent. Or, for the low-tech crowbar version, his big chances missed/goals scored ratio was also wonky.
I can't believe that guy swallowed his own hype to the point where he genuinely thought having Kane as a rival was beneath him. Although I vastly prefer Kane, at the time I thought the comparison was not beyond the pale. Of course, it turned out to be very generous indeed. One of them will go down as an all-time great, and the other will be remembered in the PL primarily as a disappointing want-away transfer with a two-year purple patch in there somewhere.
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For any other United manager save for Mourinho, Lukaku would have fallen short on the question of mentality, let alone for his first touch and inconsistency.
Sir Alex literally dropped a top of the league striker in Berbatov (literally in the same year he won the golden boot) because he was inconsistent and I would pick Berba over Lukaku every day of the week.
If Sterling is englands best player at the moment then god help him. all the english media ever want to do is watch or comment on their own failing
What are these long periods you refer to? He was scoring right up to December, January was rested for couple of games, then played 3 league games without scoring in Jan,/feb and 2 League cup games. Then done his hamstring in Feb, played one 90 min league game in March and League cup final (without scoring). then we went on lockdown for a few months and he returned with a goal vs Arsenal and has been consistently scoring since then. What is this long period? 6-7 games over a couple of weeks? Harry Kane goes 11 games without scoring. Rashford has gone on stretches too. Are you sure?
I already addressed this; Sterling misses no more chances than other top forwards. He wasn't even in the top 20 for big chances missed in the league last year. So if he scores because of "volume of chances" then its the same for all the other scorers.
Aubameyang missed 23 big chances last season, Vardy 17, Jesus 18, Wilson 21, Rashford 16, Salah 16, Mane 11, Kun 10, Sterling 8, Firmino 9.
Even this seaosn Mane has missed more. Why should we not apply the same logic to the other forwards?
The point I was making is why don't all City's other forwards score and assist as much as Sterling if it's Pep and the system that does it for them? Surely everyone else will be eating just as good
The overrated Raheem vs the World Class Mane
this Season Sterling has scored in 19 different games. Of the games he has only assisted and not scored (excluding games where he has done both) = 3. That's almost every other game he plays he scores or assists. Now you may think that isn't that great.
Mane - scored in 20 different games. the games where he has only provided an assist = 5.
Mane has contributed in 25 matches vs Sterlings 22. Mane has missed 18 big chances in the league to Sterling 17. according to whoscored, Mane loses the ball more than Sterling too. One is overrated, cannot finish etc the other is world class forward.
this Season Sterling has scored in 19 different games. Of the games he has only assisted and not scored (excluding games where he has done both) = 3. That's almost every other game he plays he scores or assists. Now you may think that isn't that great.
Mane - scored in 20 different games. the games where he has only provided an assist = 5.
Mane has contributed in 25 matches vs Sterlings 22. Mane has missed 18 big chances in the league to Sterling 17. according to whoscored, Mane loses the ball more than Sterling too. One is overrated, cannot finish etc the other is world class forward.
Sterling went 11 games without scoring this season too, although he played less than a minute in one game so it would be fairer to say 10. He G+A per 90 this season in the PL and CL is only slightly better than Kane's. Kane has taken 3 penalties though. Worth noting that City take almost twice as many shot per game as Spurs this season although Sterling and Kane's SPG are similar. Sterling generally slightly under performs his xG where as Kane is one of the best at outperforming it. Over 6 seasons Sterling has scored 4 less than expected whilst Kane has scored 22 more than expected.
If you look at Sane's numbers for the past couple of seasons and Mahrez's this season (G+A per 90) they're slightly better than Sterling's this season. Sterling's best in that regard was 17/18 which was slightly better than those numbers but in the same range. They have certainly done similar to Sterling by that measure.
And another he played 4 mins, some came off the bench and played 17 mins .
No one is arguing that Kane isn't England's best player or a better finisher than Sterling.
G+A per 90 will typically favour bench players and super subs. if they were actually better they would start more.
Thanks. This is almost exactly the reply I was going to make to the same post. I still think Sterling is great but to portray him as a clinical finisher is just not accurate.
G/xG is the single best measure we have of "clinicalness" (and anyone who wants to shit on xG while using "big chances missed" should be aware that those stats rely on the same learnt statistical methods). Sterling has a net negative G/xG (i.e. <1) over the last six seasons, and that's no fluke because, as you correctly point out, he finishes below expectation most seasons. His career G/xG is something like 0.97.
As for why he doesn't look bad compared to the other City forwards, that's actually pretty easy. None of them are that clinical. Jesus is woeful. Even Aguero has had a bang average G/xG over the last six seasons (1.04). That's not a good ratio for an elite striker.
An example of truly elite is Harry Kane, one of the most consistently clinical finishers in all of Europe, who, as I'm glad you pointed out, has never had a season in his career in which he's underperformed expectation. His G/xG is 1.19, which is among the very best in the league (better than Salah, Mane, Firmino, Auba, Rashford, Martial, all of City's forwards, all of Chelsea's forwards etc.).
(Also, I'm pretty sure Kane has never gone 11 games without scoring in his entire career. 6 or 7 is the most I remember.)
See above since it was easier to add on to CM's reply.
I have a direct question to ask though, mate. You bolded the part of my post where I suggested that Sterling doesn't look like a confident, clinical goalscorer. Do you really disagree with that? Even when he was consistently scoring some good goals, it always felt a bit like he was imitating a much better version of Welbeck (as in, kinda winging it and scoring by hook or by crook, rather than through precise, powerful, ruthless, unsaveable shots).
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City have had brilliant players at CB, CM and FW, but they never have good FBs.
Rashford is the better player now imo but City is by far the better attacking team. 21 goals when the majority of the season you are supplied by Lingard and Pereira is very impressive.
Probably if purely looking at numbers but I don't trust him in most big games or when his team is having an uncomfortable game.
Sterling was literally scoring late winners out of nothing in one of their title runs. He scores in most of their big games too. He was poor today KDB was also off apart from a spell second half. Infact City had a poor game overallThought he was probably the best of a bad bunch today. You got the impression if the team had been better around him he’d have been a real handful.
Some of his misses today were absolutely shocking.
Not at the moment.
His goal record is incredible considering the amount of chances and sitters he misses. His movement and anticipation must be next level because he gets so many good chances in every game, if he was truly clinical he'd be scoring 50+ a season.
He has never scored against us in 17 attempts or so. He has mentality issue when playing against us or big teams.
On the other hand Aguero scores a lot against big teams. City will be missing him mostly. Without him , it's difficult against Madrid in CL.
On the other hand Aguero scores a lot against big teams. City will be missing him mostly. Without him , it's difficult against Madrid in CL.
His movement and general play is absolutely excellent which is essentially the reason why he's a top player. Don't see him take many heavy touches or the wrong touches in those tight areas. It's usually the finish that he can get wrong.
But he's not a player I envy us not having. Rashford and Martial can be every bit as good them.