How Sterling is rising to the challenge set by Guardiola

After looking to be on his way out of City, the forward silenced critics by improving his game

Sergio Aguero had not long finished delivering an emotional speech to his team-mates in the dressing room after Manchester City’s dazzling 4-2 win away to Napoli on Wednesday when Raheem Sterling’s phone beeped. “I’m not talking to you for two days #monster”, read the text from a close associate. Sterling smiled. The England forward had just produced another “monster” performance, claimed his 10th goal of the campaign to move him ahead of Aguero as the club’s top scorer and scrawled more red pen

‘He is very close to Leroy but they are egging each other on. It is almost like a mini-competition’

through the narrative that dictated he would be the fall-guy among Pep Guardiola’s surfeit of attacking stars.

The message was symbolic – there was no need to talk because Sterling is doing all his talking on the pitch, an indispensable cog in a relentless attacking wheel that has scored 49 goals after just 16 matches this season.

The story is apt because Arsenal visit the Etihad Stadium tomorrow only 67 days since reports emerged of Sterling being potentially used as a makeweight in a deal to bring Alexis Sanchez from north London to City.

There are conflicting versions of what happened between the clubs in the remaining 72 hours of that chaotic summer transfer window but Sanchez’s proposed £60million move fell through and, suffice to say, City protested forcibly at any suggestion that they had been prepared to let Sterling leave.

City’s interest in Sanchez has not gone away, but even if they move for him again in January or next summer – when the Chilean’s contract with Arsenal expires – there are unlikely to be many musing over Sterling’s future if his stunning form over the past three months is a glimpse of things to come.

“If you want this, show me you want this,” Guardiola told Sterling over the summer as he challenged the 22-year-old to improve his finishing and final ball in order to hold down a regular first-team place. Those nine words have become almost a daily calling card in the player’s mind.

There are plenty of players who would have questioned their value to Guardiola following the £44million arrival of Bernardo Silva only five days after the end of last season, the final two games of which Sterling had spent on the substitutes’ bench.

“There’s no doubt some players would have reacted to Bernardo coming in, and Gabriel Jesus and Leroy Sane before that, and resolved that their number was up,” one well-placed City source said. “Raheem did the total opposite. He was never going to run from that fight.”

The Sane factor is interesting. The relationship between the Germany winger, 21, and Sterling is one of the strongest in the City dressing room.

They share many common interests, including their taste in music and the singer Drake, in particular, but insiders say they are helping to raise each other’s levels on the pitch.

“They’re very close but there’s also this element of them egging each other on,” one City source. “It’s almost like a mini-competition between them to keep trying to outdo each other.”

It is clearly working. Sane has eight goals to Sterling’s 10 and the pair have been largely unplayable while they have been operating on opposite flanks.

“Every one of those attacking players is smiling but they’re all on egg shells, too, because they know there’s someone waiting to take their place,” another source said. Guardiola underlined as much three or four metres” and credits Sterling with “wanting to stay there, to improve, to practise, to shoot”. Sterling has been encouraged in particular to isolate the full-back as much as possible but also to look to play inside when necessary.

“His final pass still has to improve – he has to do it better,” Guardiola said. “Having more patience to analyse that small gap, and it’s a small gap [to pass through] in the position he is in but the big, big players decide well in those moments. We demand a lot with those kind of players but he is curious and if he improves he will get it, definitely.” Almost everyone close to Sterling has commented on how much more serious he has become about his football and cite events in his personal life as a major factor.

In January, Sterling’s partner, Paige Milian, gave birth to their son, Thiago, and only weeks later the couple moved to a rural £3 million mansion outside Crewe, neighboured by several farms and deliberately out of the way.

Sterling, who also has a young daughter, Melody Rose, from a previous relationship, has had a personal chef for some time but also had a multi-purpose gym built at his new home, which helps to explain why he looks stronger than ever. Sterling’s Christian faith is important to him. He will pray before and after all matches, and for the big occasions, such as tomorrow’s clash with Arsenal, he will always take a quiet moment to think about his late father, whose memory he has become determined to honour. He is certainly doing that.