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.
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.