Why is value of Sterling so low with Guardiola?

IT IS inflammatory to make Manchester united the point of comparison when considering what Pep guardiola has shown himself willing to do with a young English talent, but the story of Jimmy Murphy and Bobby Charlton is too appropriate to pass up.

Charlton had sent a number of cross-field passes sailing over his team- mates one Saturday at Old Trafford. So Murphy took him out across the same turf the following day and had him hitting the same balls across the deserted pitch into touch, then running to collect them, one by one.

‘Now you know how your team-mates feel,’ he told the raw young forward.

It is one of many exchanges related in a new book about Murphy — Jimmy — by biographer Wayne Barton, to be published early next year. all the stories reveal the commodity the legendary Welsh coach had in vast supply for his proteges: persistence.

The events of the last 48 hours have called into question whether guardiola even believes in proteges.

When the waiting for him was finally over and he walked into City a little over 12 months ago, club chairman Khaldoon al Mubarak proclaimed in an evangelistic annual address on the club’s website that the fabulous part about guardiola was his ability to develop young players. ‘ He has done that with Barcelona. He has done that with Bayern Munich. Pep always has a knack for talent and he loves to find young players that have incredible talent,’ declared al Mubarak.

The businessman’s argument is unsustainable when City have shown themselves ready to respond to arsenal’s attempt to structure a deal including Raheem Sterling — whose £49m transfer from Liverpool was the saga of two summers ago — as a makeweight for 28year-old alexis Sanchez.

So, too, is the notion — put forward long before guardiola’s arrival — that City’s director of football model would allow no new manager to walk in, rip it all up and start again.

Sterling has rough edges. His finishing is imperfect. His final ball can be inconsistent. Yet there is enough raw material to work with.

The statistics demonstrate that guardiola (right, with Sterling) has not developed him in the slightest as a player, despite that story of the telephone call to the forward at last summer’s European Championship, in which he boosted his crashing confidence and declared: ‘I’ll fight for you.’

On none of the key criteria plotted by Opta did Sterling improve under guardiola last season. On many of them, he performed far better in his final Liverpool Premier League season under Brendan Rodgers than he ever has at City.

There were 75 chances created in that 2014-15 campaign, compared with 46 under guardiola; 33 shots on target and 22 for guardiola. He started nearly an identical number of games in the two campaigns.

Defenders of the guardiola faith will tell you that he only wants the best players for his worldclass team. That is consistent with one essential factor about his time at Barcelona: he needed Lionel Messi to make it all tick.

‘Cruyff the father, Pep the son and Messi the holy spirit,’ to quote a legendary L’Equipe front-page headline about the once-great team.

The complexity of agreeing fees for both Sterling and Sanchez in the last 48 hours of a transfer window mean he will not be leaving for arsenal, although he returns to Manchester in the full knowledge that he was dispensable.

The dynamics of the relationship are irrevocably altered, in a way that would have been alien to Charlton and Murphy in the days when coaches improved players.

Charlton once said of the coach: ‘He would spare no rage if one of his proteges surrendered the ball too easily or passed it stupidly. He could also get upset if you turned him down when he invited you for a drink after special training on a Sunday.’

They were different times and none the poorer for it.