This might make you feel old, but Raheem Sterling should be considered a veteran.
The Chelsea winger is into his 13th Premier League campaign, and has made 359 appearances — only 70 players have made more. He also has 82 England caps — only 15 players have more, while no player has ever appeared for England at more World Cups than Sterling, having been selected for the tournaments hosted by Brazil in 2014, Russia in 2018, and Qatar in 2022.
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Sterling has had an unusual career. He’s appeared for three of the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’, but Liverpool fans resent the nature of his departure, some Manchester City fans weren’t always sold on him, and Chelsea fans haven’t yet learned to love him. He’s often appeared unconvincing in front of goal, and yet has scored 118 times in the Premier League, finishing fifth, sixth and fourth in the Premier League scoring charts during his best seasons. And, in some ways, he felt like an old head on young shoulders in his formative years, but now is playing like a youngster despite all his experience.
Before Sunday’s meeting with one of his former clubs, Manchester City, this is an opportune moment to assess the evolution of one of the Premier League’s most intriguing players.
All footballers evolve throughout their careers. Age catches up with everyone eventually, particularly in terms of speed — which has always been Sterling’s defining asset, and is particularly important for wingers. This graph, using data from Twenty First Group, shows that, in terms of dribbling past opponents, players tend to peak very early, around the age of 22.
After that, because of declining mobility and a more risk-averse approach, they gradually ease off. Ryan Giggs, originally a flying winger and later a calm passer, would be the classic example. But the curious thing about Sterling is that, in some ways, he has been returning to the Sterling of old.
In his career, Sterling has been primarily a dribbler, then almost a poacher, and now a dribbler again.
The statistics demonstrate that neatly. In terms of attempting to dribble past opponents, 2023-24 Sterling is more like Liverpool-era Sterling than City-era Sterling.
And the pattern is even more pronounced when you look at how often Sterling simply carries the ball forward. Not necessarily the most crafty, technical dribbler, Sterling is more effective when running with the ball at speed into space.
You expect that from young wingers, but the interesting thing about teenage Sterling was his level of tactical intelligence. Although theoretically a typical modern winger, Sterling was used as a second striker by Brendan Rodgers at times in his first full campaign, and then often at the tip of a diamond in Liverpool’s near-title-winning campaign of 2013-14.
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At the end of that season, for England’s opening World Cup game against Italy, Roy Hodgson elected to use him in that No 10 role against Italy, handing him the task of marking Andrea Pirlo at the age of 19. That showed Sterling’s tactical ability, and how managers placed trust in him. In the following campaign, Rodgers sometimes fielded him as a wing-back. This was not a pure speedster focused on attacking, but someone who offered discipline and defensive awareness.
The question, in Sterling’s early years, was about his end product. That’s common for a winger, although primarily in terms of whether they can cross the ball. For Sterling, who has never played in sides based around crossing, it was more about his finishing. After a 4-1 win over West Ham United in December 2013 when Sterling wasted a couple of good chances, Rodgers said it was just about him “getting that bit of composure” in front of goal, and decided to re-position Sterling — against the player’s wishes.
“He is (now) scoring goals, which is important,” said Rodgers. “It’s interesting because he has always preferred playing from the left. And if you’ve seen him in the youth team, he played from the left. But when I looked at him in training, all his goals were coming from the right.” Over his career, he has played slightly more on the left (the minutes classified as being at right-back were in more of a right-wing-back role).
Still, Sterling never quite became prolific at Liverpool, and his finishing ability prompted debates about his technical skills. “I don’t rate him that highly as a striker of the ball and by that, I mean, literally, how he kicks it,” wrote Paul Scholes in a newspaper column. “Too often his shots are a scuff or a bobble.”
When he left Liverpool, many were suggesting Sterling lacked the clinical edge to become a truly top-class player — and it wasn’t uncommon to hear people saying that another Liverpool youngster, Jordon Ibe, was the better long-term bet.
The 2015-16 season, Sterling’s first at Manchester City under Manuel Pellegrini, was a little flat, but Pep Guardiola recognised that Sterling’s speed and positional awareness meant he could become a regular goalscorer, given a bit of coaching.
Midway through his first season under Guardiola, 2016-17, Sterling’s performances were promising but his goal return hadn’t improved sufficiently. “There’s something wrong with me — there’s actually something wrong with me,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. “I should have so many more goals. It’s terrible. I should be on about 15-16 goals right now and that’s what I need to do to get to the player I want to be… you need to start scoring goals. I’m putting too much pressure on myself at times.”
That feels strange coming from a player who, today, sits 22nd in the goalscoring charts for the Premier League era, and 17th, if you take away everyone’s penalties. For a winger, that’s a truly excellent record and owes more to Sterling’s tactical intelligence than his literal shooting ability.
Under Guardiola, Sterling became a brilliantly efficient goalscoring machine. At his best, he scored 18, 17 and then 20 goals in three straight league seasons, primarily because he proved brilliant at popping up at the far post to finish simple chances from balls played across the six-yard box. It didn’t matter which flank he played from. Here are a couple of memorable examples from 2019: one in a famous Champions League second leg against Tottenham from the left, another from a 6-0 thrashing of Watford in the FA Cup final from the right.
The finishes were simple, but getting into the right positions was key.
To underline the point, it’s worth looking at where the goals came from. More precise data could be used to demonstrate his close-range finishes, but perhaps a simpler barometer is looking at how few of his goals have come from outside the box. Of the 34 players to have scored 100 or more Premier League goals, only Peter Crouch, Dion Dublin, Darren Bent, Sadio Mane, Jamie Vardy and Dwight Yorke have scored a lower percentage of their goals from outside the box.
Meanwhile, as the earlier graph proves, his dribbling numbers fell. “Now I’m just going at it 100 per cent,” he said. “Before, I was trying to be silky.”
It felt inevitable that Sterling’s departure from City would come at the same time as Erling Haaland’s arrival. It wasn’t just that, after a couple of years generally playing without a proper No 9, City were now built around a true striker who needed to be serviced — after all, Sterling happily co-existed alongside Sergio Aguero. It was also that Sterling’s more literal role was filled by Haaland. The Norwegian is a master of the far-post finish, and therefore Sterling’s presence there wasn’t required.
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His first campaign at Chelsea is almost not worth much consideration, given that he played under three managers — Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter and Frank Lampard — while the squad was being turned upside-down. But under Mauricio Pochettino this season, Sterling has a more obvious purpose and a very different one from at City. And it’s not about goalscoring.
This chart shows Sterling’s shooting performance in each season throughout his career. The higher up the graph, the more shots he was taking. The further to the right, the better quality of shots he was taking.
His Chelsea performance is very different to his peak goalscoring years; it’s more like his first couple of seasons at City.
But Sterling’s ball-carrying skills, which we haven’t seen to this extent since his Liverpool days, have come to the fore, as the numbers show. Chelsea have only won four league games this season. In two of them, the 3-0 victory over Luton Town and the 4-1 win against Burnley, Sterling has been involved in all of their goals. There have been demonstrations of his close-range finishing ability and also his off-the-ball running. But the main factor has been that ball-carrying skill.
In the game against Luton, he received the ball out on the right, carried it infield into a goalscoring position, and fired home.
Against Burnley, he received the ball out near the touchline, dribbled into the box and forced an own goal.
Later in that game, he again received the ball out near the touchline, dribbled into the box and was tripped for a penalty.
And for Chelsea’s final goal at Turf Moor, he received the ball on the halfway line, on the turn, and carried it to the opposition box before playing a ball in behind for Cole Palmer. Eventually, Nicolas Jackson finished off the move.
This is a side of Sterling we haven’t seen consistently for a few years — he simply wasn’t encouraged to do this kind of thing under Guardiola. And in the Premier League this season, no one has attempted to dribble past more opponents than Sterling.
The question, though, is about Sterling’s consistency when attempting dribbles. While his raw numbers are high, his success rate is low. There’s a danger that he goes down too many blind alleys, and that highlights packages show an unreasonably favourable reflection of his displays.
In that respect, Sterling’s numbers are back where they started over a decade ago. City fans this weekend might remark upon what a different player he is at Chelsea. Liverpool fans tuning into the game might consider him pretty much the same player they remember from a decade ago.
Both would be fair assessments. The Sterling of 2023 isn’t too different from the Sterling of 2013 — he just became one of the Premier League’s most consistent goalscorers in between. Rather than evolved, he has revolved back to the player he used to be.
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(Top photos via Getty Images)