#7 | Raheem Sterling - 2021/22 Performances

[domalino]

Thought he was piss poor yesterday. Played well against Everton and PSG but created very little yesterday on the left, cutting back constantly and refusing to drive at defenders (which is his biggest strength)

Off the top of my head he created the disallowed goal for Mahrez, who should never have been offside, and then put a perfect cross on a plate for Jesus who botched the chance.

Not sure how many goal scoring chances people are expected to create in each match, if it wasn't for the mistakes of his teammates he'd have bagged 2 assists.

 

[MarsLlama]

I think all of the front 3 were poor today

Most of them were way off it. The only players who seemed genuinely in control were the midfielders, Ederson and sometimes Cancelo. Even Walker, Dias and Laporte kept giving it away stupidly in ways they'd never, ever do in normal conditions.

Think it makes sense just to agree that playing football in such heavy snow is probably extremely hard and nobody can really be judged on their performance yesterday.

That said, Sterling created two great chances that weren't taken and also set up the Mahrez offside goal, which would certainly not be considered a bad game if it was, say, Grealish or Jesus's output. He's held to a higher standard than our other players- it's not enough to score or create chances with Sterling, he also has to be technically perfect, never give the ball away and track back whenever Cancelo goes forward.

 

[MarsLlama]

Off the top of my head he created the disallowed goal for Mahrez, who should never have been offside, and then put a perfect cross on a plate for Jesus who botched the chance.

Not sure how many goal scoring chances people are expected to create in each match, if it wasn't for the mistakes of his teammates he'd have bagged 2 assists.

+ set up Gundogan who fired right at the 'keeper, it wasn't as easy a chance as the Jesus one but still great work from Sterling to slip him in.

 

[SSL2]

Off the top of my head he created the disallowed goal for Mahrez, who should never have been offside, and then put a perfect cross on a plate for Jesus who botched the chance.

Not sure how many goal scoring chances people are expected to create in each match, if it wasn't for the mistakes of his teammates he'd have bagged 2 assists.

Agreed, fair point.

However I just find him so frustrating to watch playing on the left, often when he's up against an aggressive full back (Johnson yesterday/AWB/Reece James) he just seems to loose all confidence. Much more effective on the right wing and influences the game alot more. But as others have eluded to on here he has competition for that right wing spot.

 

[mccity]

The angle of the pass was indeed excellent, I thought it just held up a little and prevented Gabby from taking it a tiny bit earlier, but that could have been down to the conditions as much as Sterling marginally under-hitting it

Yeah that wasn't on Sterling imo. You could see the pass really slow down suddenly which gave Fabianski the chance to close him down. Under normal conditions I think Jesus would have had all the time in the world thanks to the pass.

 

[asahartford1]

I’ve tried to work out the logic here but I can’t think who other than Mahrez is a pure right wing/right attacking midfielder.

Grealish is left footed, Foden is left footed (but also the second coming and can play anywhere) and deployed most effectively on the left - just happen to have displaced Sterling.

Jesus has operated anywhere across the front 3, Bernardo operates best as a central attacking midfielder but when KDB is in, finds himself pushed out to the right. If Sterling is good enough he should be beating these 2 to the right wing position, when Mahrez isn’t there.

Ferran is the only player left and he’s played 28 times in 2 years (4 this year due to injury etc) and a huge chunk of that he’s played as a striker.

Aside from anything else, Sterling has to be earning his place on merit, and if he hasn’t been beating these players, performance-wise, in training then why should he be deployed on the right, just because he supposedly plays better there?He never normally plays on the right for the national team for whom he gets most credit.

There was a time I’d have agreed with the Sterling on the right thing, but if that’s where he plays his best football, yet others perform better, why should we shoehorn him in?

He’s improved the past couple of weeks but that shouldn’t result in him displacing others, when they’re offering just as much or more.

Grealish is left footed ??
Why has nobody told him ? -)

 

[robbieh]

Agreed, fair point.

However I just find him so frustrating to watch playing on the left, often when he's up against an aggressive full back (Johnson yesterday/AWB/Reece James) he just seems to loose all confidence. Much more effective on the right wing and influences the game alot more. But as others have eluded to on here he has competition for that right wing spot.

I actually think we have three players better than Raheem for the left. Foden, Jesus and Grealish.
On the right he's up against 2, Mahrez and Jesus.

 

[MarsLlama]

I actually think we have three players better than Raheem for the left. Foden, Jesus and Grealish.
On the right he's up against 2, Mahrez and Jesus.

Not trying to start an argument mate, but what makes you say Grealish is better than Sterling? Because so far we're seeing a man miles out of his depth- Sterling is in the worst form of his life and still managing to give us more.

If Sterling gets back to his best, which the signs suggest is happening now, he's also got to be considered better than Jesus on either side just because of goal threat from wide positions, with most of Jesus's goals this season coming from the middle.

 

[Txiki Txiki Bang Bang]

Not trying to start an argument mate, but what makes you say Grealish is better than Sterling? Because so far we're seeing a man miles out of his depth- Sterling is in the worst form of his life and still managing to give us more.

If Sterling gets back to his best, which the signs suggest is happening now, he's also got to be considered better than Jesus on either side just because of goal threat from wide positions, with most of Jesus's goals this season coming from the middle.

Well he did cost us 100m so he has to be better than Sterling but seriously Grealish could complete 5% of his passes in a game and score 10 own goals and most here would still rate him higher than Sterling and Mahrez. It's just how it goes over here.

 

[youngbob]

Thought he did okay yesterday. Looked tired by the end and started fluffing very basic things but was solid for 70 mins.