ManchesterCity

Has Raheem Sterling reached his ceiling? What Manchester City need is certainty

25-Jun-2022 19:00:22 | The Guardian

For all his goal scoring ability, Pep Guardiola cannot trust his forward to deliver at clutch moments in the biggest games

Raheem Sterling made a dart in behind Vincent Kompany to receive an angled pass from Luis Suárez. His first touch, with the outside of his right foot, took him outside the line of the right-hand post, some 12 yards from goal, with Kompany and Joe Hart between him and the net. He turned back inside, opening an angle to curl a left-footed finish between Hart and Pablo Zabaleta into the bottom corner. Hart shuffled and Kompany closed in, only for Sterling to jink back and roll the ball through an implausibly large gap into the right side of the goal.

That was the opener in Liverpool’s 3-2 win over Manchester City in April 2014 but what makes it memorable was not just that it was a vital goal in the title race, rather the way Sterling conjured space where none had seemed to exist. It was that goal, more than anything, that led to the inflated expectations on Sterling going into the World Cup.