The brilliance of Pep Guardiola has made Raheem Sterling a world class player

It has been apparent that every time Manchester City are scoring so is their striker Raheem Sterling and the forward is now repeating that trick with the England national team.

Sterling was on hand for Gareth Southgate’s team when they destroyed Czech Republic in their opening Euro 2020 qualifier which ended in a 5-0 win for the English. Sterling no less scored a hat trick, but it was the way he done it, the way that he has manned up over the last 3 months which is attracting fans of the game.

Let’s make no mistake that Sterling has always been seen as a good solid player that can score goals, but one whose career could just have passed in by. Look at his club Manchester City and the wealth of talent that they have including Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus for scoring goals. But Sterling has risen alongside those players and at times in the past few months has surpassed them. He is scoring goals but he is also creating them, and his finishing is second to none.

Southgate is now seeing the very best of a player who has spent just the right amount of time under his club manager Pep Guardiola to get the best out of him. There is no doubt that Sterling has matured and become the complete player under Guardiola, who could have seen that coming when Sterling was being coached by Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool a few years ago? In one infamous clip on you tube he gets told off by Rodgers during a training session. But in just 4 short years Sterling has gone from potential to a world class player.

It is telling of course that 4 years ago Xavi of Barcelona admitted that Sterling could play for Barcelona, he saw him as that good and Sterling has shown the world just how good he has been banging in goals for City at club and Champions League level. He has gone from being the incomplete player that could save his team and then have inconsistent games, usually going down too easily, to someone who has toughened up and scoring almost at freewill his form has been so good.

Sterling also has a finesse about him, a majority of his goals lately have been sublime reminding one of the likes of Thierry Henry or a vintage Marco van Basten. At just 24 Sterling has the world at his feet and his near £50m switch from Liverpool to City now seems like a bargain.

With such a close title run in with his former team this season, it would be ironic if Sterling was to end up being the difference.