Seen more criticism for sterling miss placing a pass in a 5-1 win against Wolves than Mahrez did for doing exactly that twice, in more dangerous situations in a 4-3 win against RM which ultimately cost us the tie. How he can be blamed for a goal because he lost the ball in the opponents box is beyond me.
It’s not a mistake as such. Whenever we have a similar situation/counter attack at 3 on 3 and he has the ball you know it’s not going to result in a goal most of the time.
if he is the final man of that 3 to touch it it could well be a goal.
it’s never been his skill.
off the top of my head I feel like he had a very good start to the game against Chelsea at home but then as soon as alonso got booked early on he stopped taking him on which I couldn’t understand (maybe he is told to play safe).
we’ve been less effective/slow on both wings compared to 17-8 & 18-19 this season and last which can be frustrating as a spectator.
Sterling really doesn’t suit playing up front better moving into those positions.
some say he must play on the right but he has scored good goals from the left, Southampton at home, Leeds away…
it’s the number of tap ins he has missed which I think is the reason most of all that some of us think we could do better. Burnley away, Lyon. Maybe it isn’t possible to be clinical in those situations and we’re wrong?
if haaland is to change the setup and we have less need for midfielders to flood the box to score (how many times do we cross to nobody though?) perhaps sterling won’t be asked to go into the box as much and won’t get as many goals. In which case he becomes the playmaker which takes us back to the wolves misplaced pass and countless others and perhaps he doesn’t suit the team anymore?