Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

budgetmeansbudget wrote:I'm not sure who's failed to deliver for their respective new clubs more, Sterling or Lallana.

£25m doesn't buy you world class these days. But £50m really should. So it has to be Sterling.

Caballero!

Got to be pleased for Pellegrini.

Well done to City.

6th in the league is now unlocked as a EL place. I'd suggest that anyone down to Everton in 12th could get that.

st_brendy wrote:

budgetmeansbudget wrote:I'm not sure who's failed to deliver for their respective new clubs more, Sterling or Lallana.

£25m doesn't buy you world class these days. But £50m really should. So it has to be Sterling.

Worth noting that Sterling has scored about the same number of Premier League goals at a comparative stage in his career to Ronaldo, but is a year younger that Ronaldo was. Ronaldo would score about 15 goals the season after (so next year for Sterling), then at about 23 became a world beater.

Sterling has just turned 21. Its easy to forget, but his performances to do remain comparable at a similar age to the best player to ever play in the league.

Typical of English fans to beat up or hype a guy thats still learning. The amount of talent he has, he could be one of our greatest ever players

Not sure I can see a potential Christiano Ronaldo in there, more of a Sean Wright Phillips for me.

budgetmeansbudget wrote:Not sure I can see a potential Christiano Ronaldo in there, more of a Sean Wright Phillips for me.

Of course, he might fade out and be playing for Brentford at 29. I guess the point was that even the best players take up to about 23 before you start seeing them at their best level regularly, so in another two years or three years if he is still not a world class player, you can judge the transfer as overpaying.

Many United fans hated Ronaldo to begin with. He used to try everything in the world and have a low success rate. He then noticeably put on bulk and strength, learned when to pass and when to try the fancy sh*t, and by 23 he was making full backs look like schoolkids week in week out. It wasnt the special stuff he increased, it was learning to control it and produce the simple stuff consistently, and then he exploded.

I personally dont think Sterling lacks talent, I think its his decision making he lacks at times. He looks like a player always wanting to prove his skill and worth, and that leads to selfish or bad decisions. Thats something that can be learnt and that you expect to get a lot better with experience. If he does, he is going to be an amazing player.

You are right, he's still young and learning his trade, and still relatively new at Man C.

I saw alot of the talent and quality you allude to when he was at Liverpool but it hasn't really come out yet at Man C. Whether it's because he's now a smaller fish in a bigger pond and it will take more time to adjust or whether he just hasn't got what it takes to make the jump up to the next level, we shall see over the next year or so.

Perhaps a stunning Euros in the summer might give him the confidence to push on. Somehow he has to convert his headless chicken performances of a Wright Phillips into more composed cocky performances of a Ronaldo.