RAHEEM’S RELIEF
Sterling steps up to get the better of his old team at last
FOR all Raheem Sterling’s progress at Manchester City since signing from Liverpool in the summer of 2015, he has found success against his old club rather hard to come by.
In Sterling’s five Premier League games for City against Liverpool before last night, he ended up with four defeats and one draw. When Liverpool were thrashed 5-0 at the Etihad last season, Sterling was sat in the stands.
Throw in a pair of defeats in last season’s Champions League quarter-final and the 24-year-old could be forgiven for not looking forward to a meeting with his old team with a great deal of optimism.
His only victory over Liverpool had come in the Capital One Final at Wembley in February 2016, and that came on a penalty shootout. So this will have tasted particularly sweet for Sterling, and not just because he helped set up the winner for Leroy Sane that propelled City back into the Premier League title race. He should have ended his night with the clinching goal, but smashed the ball just wide from the edge of the area.
He has been a figure of hate on Merseyside ever since he turned down a £100,000-a-week contract to effectively force through a £49million move to City three-anda-half years ago.
A comment from his agent that Sterling would not even sign a new deal at £900,000-a-week became his Ashley Cole moment. The young man was depicted as a money-grabbing football star, when the reality is very different.
Sterling’s public persona struggled to recover even though the reaction to his performances on the pitch has been predominantly positive after scoring 54 goals in 166 games for City and helping to create many more.
The one blip has been against Liverpool, of all teams, and now he can enjoy what may prove to be a seismic victory in the context of this season’s title race.
It will not go down as one of Sterling’s greatest performances. Like City, he has momentarily lost his usual confidence and fluency after three defeats in five league games in December. This was not a night to rediscover his form in a frenetic game against a Liverpool side who arrived in Manchester unbeaten in the league this season.
‘You have to be here to see this, the intensity,’ Sky Sports pundit Graeme Souness observed at half-time. ‘Everybody on the pitch. The energy they must have expended in that 45 minutes must be like a normal 90 minutes in a Premier League game.’
It took Sterling five minutes just to get on the ball. When he did, he fell over it and then Jordan Henderson trod on his former teammate’s foot.
In Andrew Robertson, he was up against one of the most accomplished left-backs around and theirs developed into a fascinating duel down the City right — two players blessed with great pace and neither giving an inch.
In the 12th minute Sterling raced on to Fernandinho’s raking pass but lost out to Robertson as he tried to break into the penalty box. When the Brazilian set him free again just before the half-hour, Sterling cut inside and fed David Silva, who took a touch when he should have shot first time.
Sterling was a little unfortunate not to win a penalty following a tangle with Robertson, who appeared to wrap his arms around the City winger as he tried to check back.
But Sterling had the last laugh, drifting infield as City countered in the 72nd minute before slipping the ball to Sane, who fired the winner in off the far post.
A Premier League victory over Liverpool has been a long time coming and Sterling deserves to savour the moment.