The Rebirth of Raheem Sterling in Manchester City Under Pep Guardiola
"Rebirth" Raheem Sterling told Sky Sports after a 3-1 win over
West Ham last month in which he scored twice. "I keep seeing that word."
Keep playing like this and the Manchester City winger shouldn't expect
to stop seeing it any time soon.
As well as that brace against West Ham, Sterling has also scored in a
4-0 win over Bournemouth and added a further goal - the pick of the
bunch - in another 3-1 victory at Swansea on Saturday. It was the work
of a young man playing with real confidence.
Sterling
could be forgiven for feeling the talk of his demise had been grossly
exaggerated anyway, a victim of the relative apathy that engulfed Manuel
Pellegrini's final season at City coupled with the malaise that
continues to afflict the England national team.
After all, Sterling did match his best ever goal tally in his first
season following his £49m move from Liverpool. Perhaps that price tag
alone explains why progress - and nothing but progress - seems to be
tolerated from a player who is still only 21 years old.
Sterling's improvement
Season Dribbles Per 90
2015/16 41 1.92
2016/17 22 3.88
It was, as Sterling suggested, a "bit unfair" but only in the context
of the huge expectations his talent encourages. With pace and trickery
at his disposal, Sterling has a knack of gliding beyond opponents and a
fragile frame that hints at a potential for vast improvement.
He'd
given rather more than a glimpse of his capabilities under Brendan
Rodgers at Liverpool, playing his part in the team's tilt at the title
in 2013/14. This week he'll face the man who gave him that opportunity
as City take on Celtic in the Champions League.
Rodgers agrees
that Sterling's career has "drifted" in recent times but, tellingly,
suggests that such a state of affairs will not continue. "You can see
he's being coached," said the Celtic boss. And that's surely the crux of
it where Sterling is concerned.
Pep Guardiola's arrival at City means many things for the Premier
League this season, but among the more interesting prospects is the
world's premier coach working with the most exciting talents in the
country.
Much of the initial excitement has focused on how a
ball-playing defender such as John Stones might flourish, but the early
indications are that the future for Sterling could be every bit as
intriguing. Right from the outset, Guardiola identified him as a
priority.
"From the beginning I had a feeling this guy is good,"
he said. There was a phone call of support at the height of Sterling's
Euro 2016 struggles and reports of reassuring conversations with coach
Rodolfo Borrell, a man who'd worked with the player at Liverpool.
Initially, the emphasis was on instilling confidence in a youngster
under pressure - one in danger of being stifled by a critical media and a
hostile public. Guardiola spoke of wanting to "work with him and show
him how good a player he is" first and foremost.
He added: "I
spoke with him the same as I spoke with the rest of the players to say
what we are looking for. Encourage, go out and play one against one, two
against one. It doesn't matter if you lose the ball, we are there to
sustain you. So just play.
"The people who have the quality to
dribble have to dribble. The people who have the quality to beat a man
with a pass, they have to do that. I like the wingers. I love to play
the wingers. They play to go wide and take a risk in the last part of
the field."
These words indicate that it's not merely a case of infusing Sterling
with belief and ensuring he's engaged. Those are the precursors to
success. As Rodgers has suggested, Guardiola's ultimate focus is on
getting players to do the right things on the pitch. It's about
coaching.
Guardiola might love wingers but his demands are specific. "He used to call it the three Ps," Thierry Henry told Sky Sports.
"Play, possession and position. The most important one was position.
You have to stay and trust your team-mates in order for the ball to come
to you."
Shape is everything for Guardiola. "We need that," he
said recently. "People who stay wide and have the quality one against
one." It's only in the final third of the field that he expects players
to go and express themselves. For players like Sterling to make the
difference.
"That's when the freedom starts to come, in the last third," added
Henry. "You start in a high position and wide but after that, in the
last third, you can do whatever you want. He used to say to us, 'My job
is to bring you up to the last third, your job is to finish it'."
The
use of players like Henry and David Villa in the wide positions at
Barcelona highlights how Guardiola sees his wingers. They need to be
goalscorers too. And that's an aspect of Sterling's game that hasn't
always been the strongest.
So far, it's gone well though. His neat
finish against Swansea was impressive and he'll need to keep putting
those opportunities away. Sergio Aguero seems certain to be the
team's top scorer this season but the statistics show that it's Sterling
who has had the most clear-cut chances of any City player.
That's partially because Guardiola's work on shape is designed to
isolate wide men against their markers. They're expected to use that
advantage. "He's even had a go at me in the first half for not dribbling
as much as I should do," said Sterling after the West Ham game.
"The
coach is someone that, if you lose the ball after a one-on-one, won't
be angry with you," he added. "He'll always encourage you to continue by
saying to you that if you don't get by once, twice, three times, you'll
get by the next time. It removes pressure.
"In the game, when
you're faced by two or three players, you know that there's a risk of
losing the ball. But you know that the coach understands that risk. From
the start of the season, I remember him telling me after a match,
'Don't ever stop yourself from dribbling'."
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| Raheem Sterling's successful (green) and unsuccessful (red) dribbles in the Premier League in 2016/17 |
Sterling's numbers so far this season reflect that. He's averaging
3.88 completed dribbles per 90 minutes in the Premier League in 2016/17.
That's more than double the amount of successful dribbles he was
managing last season under Pellegrini.
With 22 completed dribbles,
there are only two players - Adnan Januzaj and Eden Hazard - who've
beaten their man more often in the Premier League this season. However,
those raw numbers only tell part of the story. It's where Sterling's
been doing it that's significant.
No fewer than 10 of Sterling's
completed dribbles have come within the opposition area. Remarkably,
that's more than the other half a dozen top dribblers in the country
combined. In defensive areas, Sterling maintains the shape. In the
danger areas, he attacks his man.
Premier League dribbles - 2016/17
Player Completed Dribbles Inside the Box
Eden Hazard 25 2
Adnan Januzaj 25 2
Raheem Sterling 22 10
Andros Townsend 21 1
Wilfried Zaha 19 0
Sadio Mane 18 4
Paul Pogba 15 0
Show the player you trust him. Give him confidence. Ensure the
instructions are straightforward and the demands are clear, but allow
them to express themselves. It's proving an effective recipe. As
Sterling put it recently: "Pep makes it simple."
Guardiola sees it
the same way. "He has just focused on his job," said the coach. "That's
it. When that happens he is going to do good things for us and the
England national team. I'm pretty sure of that." The evidence so far
would suggest he's right.
