Monday, July 11, 2022

The Didier Drogba example that Raheem Sterling needs to follow after signing for Chelsea

 

When Raheem Sterling signs for Chelsea, as he is expected to this week, his transfer will be a very different one to the big breakthrough move to Manchester City in 2015. The standards are different and the expectations are set.

In picking up the 20-year-old from Liverpool, City had a raw prospect on their hands. Bundles of talent but an eccentric centre that cost him in the final third. His decision making and quality in the opposition box was improving year on year, but the feeling was that another level could come from him.

Albeit extremely young, there was an expectation that Sterling would go on to do great things, even then, but maybe not even his biggest fans would have foreseen seen him as a four-time Premier League winner with over 100 league goals before he had turned 28.

This is a role that few have had to carry for Chelsea. Outside of Hazard, the best comparison is Didier Drogba, a man who won games on his own. That's the height of Sterling's challenge. Can he replicate an attacker with 39 goals and 25 assists against the remaining top six opponents, in just 101 games?

Tuchel has made it clear that Chelsea aren't a side that can win at 80 per cent, but sometimes you have to rely on those matches. Pulling through when it isn't clicking. Getting the vital points against those around you. That was Drogba.

He was the difference maker with Chelsea on a bad day, and when his team needed him on the big days, he was always there. At Manchester City, Sterling has never had to be that guy.

He's had the powers around him to join forces and overcome great teams, steamroller inferior ones and make a procession of a competitive league. That isn't the nature of the beast he is riding at Chelsea.

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