And Now His Watch Is Ended: A Legend's legend
And Now His Watch Is Ended: A Legend's legend
About Raheem Sterling's Manchester City career, his Chelsea leap and a familiar story.
Raheem Sterling’s 7 year candle and its flame gently flicker to an end. The Englishman, through trial and tribulation, looks to be leaving for pastures new.
Sterling has never been one to remain static. Through his career he’s often opted to leap wholeheartedly into the ocean of unknown, accepting challenge as more preferable to comfort. To this day, those challenges, the doubting whispers and dishonest journalistic narratives have been left with a firm Raheem Sterling sized cross through them.
The Englishman’s newest journey comes riddled again with numerous spiky remarks and assumptions, that would hold less basis if those making the suggestions simply reflected on the career of one of the Premier League’s finest attackers.
This landscape is natural for Sterling. Conquering the international stage, establishing himself as a professional footballer through his adolescence, the social justice campaigns and his role as protagonist in the most successful domestic side in English history leave him a wondrous track record.
If history is anything to go by, Sterling’s future at Chelsea should follow the pattern of the highly doubted, misunderstood and underrated one making a path where one doesn’t seem to present itself, prospering as he does so.
The legend of Sterling can be split two ways; the case for Raheem as a legend of Manchester City, and the league, as well as the legend, the story, that typifies him too and both deserve reflection.
Through his Manchester City stint, Raheem Sterling played a career’s worth, in his minutes, accomplishments and growth, departing as a legend of the club.
A player at most other clubs with a portfolio full of the contributions to a side Sterling has, would be revered as one of their all-time greats and in many a Manchester City fan circle he rightly is.
The second iteration of Manchester City’s dominance (post-Mancini) was a resounding success built on the quality of the simultaneously introduced duo, Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling. At times, both took it in turns to stand centre stage, but for the majority of their shared career, both spearheaded Manchester City together, toward a level City and English football hadn’t seen before.
“Raheem and I have this strong connection, because we arrived at City around the same time, and there was a lot of negativity about us in the press. They said I was “the Chelsea reject.” They said Raheem was this flashy guy who left Liverpool for money. They said we were difficult characters.
Truthfully, I don’t have many close friends — inside or outside of football. It takes me a really long time to open up to people. But over time, I got closer to Raheem and I recognized what a smart and genuine person he is. He couldn’t be more different from what the tabloids were saying.
This is the real truth: Raheem is one of the nicest, most humble guys I’ve met in football.” - Kevin De Bruyne (The Players’ Tribune)
If the generation after Kompany, Silva and Aguero had to be immortalised in statue it would take the form of a Kevin De Bruyne through-ball to Raheem Sterling.
Raheem Sterling sometimes misses out on the audible plaudits of club legend status that instead accompany his contemporaries. Following on from a new and abundant class of legends might partly explain it, but his contributions to Manchester City cannot be overstated.
Late winners became synonymous with Raheem in 2017/18, which spelt a grand upturn in fortune for City following a difficult first season for Guardiola’s men. These late winners and the scenes of jubilation, mindless sprinting, and flailing limbs were the initial catalyst for City’s imminent period of dominance.
It was in-part those Raheem Sterling moments that turned City from a perceived good side, into a side teams feared was unbeatable before the first whistle. Manchester City always found a way, the opposition believed it, and now Manchester City believed it too. They wouldn’t stop believing it and haven’t stopped believing it since.
Cyclically, and almost poetic, this terrifying frame of Manchester City as unstoppable against all forces, extends to today, the most recent game in the club’s history and Raheem Sterling’s supposed final appearance in Manchester’s sky-blue.
When Manchester City were 2-0 down, at home, on the final day of the season, thoughts of ‘typical Citeh’ would’ve echoed through the minds of hardened Manchester City veteran fans.
With only 14 minutes left on the clock, Sterling, in isolation, drew Digne in, like predator and prey, and in the blink of an eye shifted the ball, before picking out the perfectly timed run of Ilkay Gundogan.
He had created something from nothing and the Etihad believed again. City believed again. And after a Rodri and Gundogan one, two, Manchester City had their hands on one more league title. The Raheem Sterling candle, with its waning flame, had again, and for the last time, ignited the change, a shift in belief and momentum that inspired a league win.
From 2017 to 2022, Manchester City’s freak half a decade of loneliness in pole position was punctuated by a Raheem Sterling capital letter, and a Raheem Sterling-inspired full-stop.
And between those five years, the sentence ran with Sterling’s brilliance thread through each and every season.
In 18/19, the FWA’s Player of the Year hit heights that placed him in conversations alongside Lionel Messi and Virgil van Dijk’s best season with the Englishman outproducing the greatest player of all time through the first 10 months of the calendar year.
Throughout this period, in Sterling’s greatest season to date, Raheem alongside Bernardo Silva were City’s two most pivotal players, in the most dominant domestic side this country has ever seen.
To be cast as the main protagonist, for that Fourmidables side, places Raheem in football folklore without question. It is the stuff of legend alone, to perform role that great, in a feat that may never be replicated again.
There continues to be inaccurate revisionism around Sterling’s recent contributions but it is imperative not to forget his contribution to the consecutive league titles of 20/21 and 21/22 either.
The 20/21 season began underwhelmingly for Manchester City as a collective but Sterling carried the output burden during precious moments. City found electric form between September until the break of Spring, winning 15 in a row and Sterling alongside talisman Gundogan displayed an on-field chemistry that exemplified this dominance.
By the time Sterling had fallen out of favour, the league was already relatively insured. His 10 goals and 7 assists provided valuable output in a side without a recognised 9, acting as both scorer and creator. Only Gundogan had scored more for City in the league that season and only De Bruyne had assisted more for City in the league. Title-winning impact.
Finally, Sterling’s swan song, a bittersweet piece that captures his continuous value, even when it is not overtly loud. Sterling, with less minutes than a leading man would’ve preferred, found the goal 13 times, amassing 5 assists, that included the transformative Villa opener. For the way Raheem’s final campaign is addressed, you’d be forgiven for thinking he didn’t end up with the second most goals for the title winners, with only De Bruyne (15) having scored more. Again, title-winning impact.
Sterling too found another gear in the pivotal December, picking up the Premier League Player of the Month award through what is famed to be the most gruelling month of league campaigns given schedule and weather.
That is what you get of Raheem Sterling: output, availability, reliability, heart, quality — week in, week out, season on season. His 109 Premier League goals, 56 Premier League career assists, 4 Premier League titles, 4 EFL cups and lone FA Cup draw that picture perfectly. Legend talk, on the basis of his achievements and performances alone, surely becomes undeniable.
As a selfish Manchester City fan, I would’ve loved a Raheem Sterling contract extension given his influence to a title-challenging side is unparalleled — his amassed trophy collection speaks for itself.
The ‘Raheem Sterling, he’s top of the league’ chant couldn’t have picked a better player. When you want to win titles, you pick Sterling.
I would’ve selfishly loved for Raheem to extend too for his person, a story of background and beliefs I relate to: the boy from Brent, unwavering in his morals, chip on his shoulder, to prove doubters wrong time and time again, who by the end of his stint had taken armband responsibilities on occasion and had become natural mentor to future Team of the Season inductees.
Like many a legend however, the good story doesn’t always play out in our perfect ending. Raheem Sterling’s unwavering ambition in tandem with a tendency to be targeted, creates the perfect condition for this story’s protagonist to leave home often with a point to prove.
Sterling might not leave a statue in front of his clubs’ stadium when he retires. He’s probably left too readily to do so, but the player people love to talk about will leave having left his mark on the culture, the league, the sport, and the game as a whole.
Sterling is assured in his self-belief. Without such mental steeliness, he wouldn’t have made it to the league, never-mind the lofty legend and record-breaking conversations he deserves to be placed in. A boyhood Manchester United fan, who made his name as the Golden Boy at a title-challenging Liverpool became a legend for Manchester City and the best Premier League side of all time, before departing for Chelsea as their marquee signing at prime age. Ain’t that a story?His intentions have always been to do right by him and it hasn’t failed him thus far.
We won’t stop talking about Sterling, even when he does block out the noise because his actions warrant it. The sport is all the better for those actions. In these conversations about Raheem Sterling however, doubting him should be done at with genuine caution. Patterns, data, eyes, stories, history — you’d be going against them all.
I’m a Manchester City fan primarily, and remain relatively (I hope) impartial in my writing, but in my heart of hearts watching Raheem Sterling succeed is a journey I will cherish irrespective of club. To him, all the best. Carry the weight of superstardom once again, leaving a trail of success in your wake.
The legend of Sterling is ultimately a familiar story, we’ve heard it many times before, only now the first chapter of its latest edition should take place in West London.
A new flame on the Raheem Sterling candle lights. This time, at Chelsea.
To #TheHatedOne, the stories of Manchester City’s golden generation will be told for decades to come holding Number 7 in high esteem. Fortunately, for what he’s achieved so far, and with numerous years to go, it will be a career as a whole, that betters with age. There’s been too much achieved for it not to.
All the best.