Pep Guardiola praises Raheem Sterling and tips him for success in central attacking role

The Spaniard thinks the England international is not far off being "incredible"

Jack Pitt-Brooke
Sunday 27 August 2017 23:35 BST
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Sterling has scored two crucial goals for City this week
Sterling has scored two crucial goals for City this week

It might not have been easy being Raheem Sterling this summer. It was hard enough to get in the Manchester City team last season – just ask Sergio Aguero - and since then they have signed Bernardo Silva from Monaco. They have spent the rest of the summer pushing for Kylian Mbappe and Alexis Sanchez up front too.

So Sterling may well have wondered if he would even get a game this year. With a World Cup next June, this is a bad time to lose your place.

But he has responded in the best possible way. Sterling scored a brilliant late volleyed equaliser against Everton last Monday and followed it on Saturday with a goal even later and even more important: a deflected winner in the seventh minute of added time.

Guardiola was delighted afterwards. He had started Sterling as a narrow inside-left in his 4-3-3, telling him to run at the Bournemouth centre-backs. He did that well, but it was his second crucial goal in a week that gave his manager faith that he is taking the crucial next step in his City career.

“He has the ability to go one against one, to attack, to be aggressive, to do what we are looking for,” Guardiola said. “We played to attack the central defenders and ‘Rash’ has this ability. If he had a little bit more sense of the goal, he would be one of the most incredible players. But, of course, he has scored two goals. Hopefully he can score more. But we encourage him, tell him he has to be positive, and try and try and try and try to score a goal.”

That is the challenge for Sterling and Guardiola, to add that penalty-box sharpness to his impressive skills in other areas. Guardiola insisted that there was nothing that he could teach Sterling. “I learn from him,” he said, “the players improve the managers, believe me.” Guardiola’s job is more about encouraging the right approach from the player, and stopping him from worrying about mistakes.

Guardiola left Bournemouth happy with three points 

“Always I say to the strikers, that when you are in the box, you have to be clinical, you have to be aggressive,” Guardiola said. “It doesn’t matter if you lose the ball when you shoot, it doesn’t matter. We are going to try, we are going to try.”

Sterling will certainly get more chances this season than last one. In Guardiola’s first year he was constrained by having no full-backs capable of attacking in wide areas. That meant the only width could come from the wingers, specifically Sterling and Leroy Sane. This season the signings of Danilo, Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy means that the full-backs provide the width and the attacking players, like Sterling and Bernardo Silva, can play inside. So Sterling is back in his best position.

“Last season [Sterling] played awesome, he played really good,” Guardiola explained. “But for Liverpool, he played an outstanding season [2013-14] with Luis Suarez and the others, he played more in the middle, not wide. Last season, for the way we want to play, he played more wide. Without the aggressive full-backs, like Walker, like Danilo, like Mendy, that we didn’t have last season, the wingers sometimes played wide, sometimes inside.”

That is why those three players, Walker, Danilo and Mendy, could be so important to City and to Sterling this season. On Saturday Mendy made his first start, rampaging up and down the left, while Danilo was just as effective down the right. It was Danilo’s stoppage time cross, after all, that set up Sterling’s winner.

“Today, to have full-backs is important, especially when you want to attack,” Guardiola explained. “When you just want to defend, and [play] long balls, and defend, and long balls, you don’t need full-backs like that. But when there are 10 players there defending there, of course you need to attack inside and outside. And outside you need guys to make this kind of situation.”

The only frustration for Guardiola and Sterling is that he will not be able to play in City’s next game, against Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium the far side of the international break. His next City game, then, will be Feyenoord away on the 13 September. That is the price for celebrating his winner near the City fans, and 17 days from now Sterling will have to resume his strong start to the season, in his new-look City team that suits his skills.

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