RAHEEM Sterling deserves a lot of credit for the way he has performed in the early parts of this pre-season so far.
After an eye catching start to his Liverpool career, Sterling’s season frittered away somewhat last time out as a combination of tiredness, injuries and a little bit of poor form found him out of sight and a little bit out of mind by the time May came around.
With plentiful options on either flank for the team you would be forgiven for thinking that Sterling might need to spend this coming twelve months on loan, but he has been eye catching in pre-season so far and deserves a lot of praise for the way he has knuckled down and got himself knocking on the door to start games once more.
The most eye catching thing to me is that he appears to have improved in front of goal. With all due respect our opposition hasn’t exactly been of outstanding quality, but Sterling has taken both of his goals so far very well indeed. That was the big question mark against his game for much of his spell in the team – his finishing was erratic, inconsistent and occasionally downright poor.
But he has started well. His finishing has been composed and confident. He has always had the pace and the skill to be a massive threat. He is prone to running down some blind alleys at times but he is still a young lad learning lots about what it takes to play at the top level.
His spritely early pre-season form could not have come at a better time. Our squad has a lot of competition for his places out wide, and this has been made further the case by the arrival of Iago Aspas and the return from injury of Fabio Borini, although press reports from Italy have emerged over the past few days about a possible move to Lazio for the Italian U21 international.
[ad_pod id=”unruly-video” align=”center”]
But the big question remains – should Sterling be in the Liverpool team or on the bench or elsewhere on loan? I think he offers us something we don’t have lots of, which is raw pace, but he does need to work a little more on his final product. That’s not knocking the lad at all, I think he is very talented and he has all the time in the world. But there is room for doubt about whether he should be starting.
And if he’s not starting, is there an argument to send him out on loan? It has certainly aided players such as Tom Ince to ply their trade for a while in the lower division, where exposure to first team football helps bring their game on. I personally would prefer to see Sterling given as much time on the pitch as possible for Liverpool, where I feel he could do well for us coming onto the field as an impact sub.
But ultimately Raheem deserves a lot of credit for making us, and the manager ask these questions by looking sharp, fit, clinical and by knocking on the door to the first eleven.
Live4Liverpool is recruiting columnists. For further info contact the site editor at live4liverpool@snack-media.com
Follow us on Twitter here: @live4Liverpool and ‘Like’ us on Facebook
This is what exactly i exptd of him, to b scoring more goals to be like the bale’s and ronaldo’s scoring from the flanks. Rodgers must keep the guy and giv him more playin time. Moreover he is british guy now,nd we know british players always love to ply their trade in their own club and country for a longer time lik gerrard, carra,ferdnand, lampard and others but the foreigners finds it difkult to commit their future to the british clubs, like c.ronaldo,torres, suarez,modric and others. So keep him and train him to bkam a star. YWNWA
Play him. He is clearly good enough. Don’t put him on the bench please
Definitely I would like to see more of him in action this action. He has all the right qualities of an up and coming star. Only drawback he has is lack of experience . If we give him more playing time I am sure he can be a great player for the future. Only thing now he needs to do is to remain humble , dig in and work hard for a place in the first team.
Personally I think it will be a wise idea to keep the boy because anyone can see that he is improving.