Sterling to United?
He'd fit in perfectly at the Swamp
Poor technical ability
Tactically braindead
Motivated by money
Can't be arsed attitude
Not a team player
I don’t think that’s a fair representation of what Sterling is.
Sterling is technically poor in relation to other players at City’s level, but he’s definitely not tactically braindead. His understanding of when and where to make runs either to receive a pass or to create space for others is world class. It’s his best attribute, and he was probably the best player in our squad at that.
Pointing being motivated by money at a footballer is obvious because pretty much all of them are. I know an ex-Premier League player who said half the time at training at all the clubs he played for (and there were a few), money would be the topic of conversation - who’s on what, not just at their team but across the league, who’s with which agent and which agents get the best contracts for their players, who’s bought what and what price they got for something they sold, who got something for free and how do they go about getting things for free. It was about money as much as it was about football.
Sterling was offered an increased contract at City but left because he wasn’t getting the game time he wanted and he fell out with Pep over games he wasn’t being picked in.
Was he motivated by money to sign for City or was it because he was told Pep would be coming in a year later? What’s the difference between Sterling signing for City and anyone else?
He never once showed a can’t be arsed attitude or that he wasn’t a team player until his falling out with Pep. For years he was a pressing machine when we used to strangle teams do death with that press we used to have as well as working hard getting back defensively when opposing teams attacked us, and it’s a reason Pep favoured him over Sané (who was a technically better player). Granted, his work rate dropped in his final two seasons with us, but before that he was one of the better ones, and he was always the most hardworking team player in an England shirt when he was getting in that team regularly.
Don’t get me wrong, Sterling’s lower technical ability used to frustrate the shit out of me and I think Pep was right to change his style and move away from players like Sterling for a while. We won a treble with a style that Sterling wouldn’t have suited. We slowed down, we had more control and required more technical players (with Grealish and Bernardo wide as opposed to Sterling and Sané, or Doku and Savinho). It was less exciting but harder to better.
But the most exciting City team, probably most exciting English football team ever, was the Centurions and Fourmidables team, of which Sterling was a huge part.
Your eveluation of him is too harsh.
