Ever since his £49 million move from Liverpool in the summer of 2015, Raheem Sterling has been the focus of intense scrutiny and has been jeered up and down the country, despite doing very little wrong. The transfer might have left a sour taste in the mouths of Liverpool fans, but it shouldn’t have affected supporters of other clubs as it seems to have done.
A poor Euro 2016 from Sterling was almost the final nail in the Englishman’s coffin, as it ensured he’d be the pantomime villain for some time longer.
However, it’s getting difficult not to wonder if Sterling is being unfairly penalised because of the narrative that has built around him. Some of the worst refereeing decisions that City have suffered in the last 18 months have all involved the winger and they’ve all been inside the penalty area.
Perhaps it began while he was still with his former club. At Liverpool, he began as a very pacy and enthusiastic but fairly lightweight youngster. He’d often get knocked about by brutish defenders in an unforgiving Premier League.
There’s a horrible phrase that’s often used to describe players who engineer free kicks and penalties cheaply — whether that’s by making sure there is contact with a defender or whether that’s feeling a touch and falling over — and it began to appear near to Sterling’s name quite often. “He goes down easily,” pundits would say.
What that does is shift the blame in a foul from a defender to an attacker, subtly suggesting they’ve conned the referee into awarding the kick. Broadly speaking, it makes the felled player a “cheat” or a “diver” and the defender the one who has been hard done by.
In some instances, that’s what happens. However, it’s worth noting the reaction of player to a challenge shouldn’t determine if it’s a foul. Players can be fouled and stay on their feet, some can be brought down and not fouled — it all comes down to whether the tackle was within the laws of the game and nothing more.
There’s engineering contact by running into a defender. There’s forcing a foul by being tricky and speedy. Sterling is the latter, but he’s tarred with the brush of the former.
In the latest of the escalating number of incidents where the winger is harshly treated, he managed to stay on his feet when shoved in the back by Kyle Walker in the penalty area during his side’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham last Saturday.
The push clearly impeded him. It came at the point he was setting himself to shoot, and the effort he managed to fire off, which was straight at Hugo Lloris and caught by the goalkeeper, wasn’t as nearly as well-placed as it could have been if he wasn’t fouled. It was one of the most blatant and clear-cut decisions that Andre Marriner had to make, and in the aftermath, some pundits and fans suggested Sterling should have made more of the contact.
Frankly, the answer is no — he shouldn’t. He should be given the decision he deserves for being clearly impeded from the good position he and his teammates had worked themselves into. It feels like he’s damned either way. If he falls over, then “he goes down too easily,” but if he stays on his feet, he doesn’t get the decision.
It also happened when Danny Rose brought him down in the box a short time earlier. The same happened following a tangle with Victor Wanyama in the first half.
There was a similar incident in the 4-0 loss at Everton. When Sterling was obviously tripped by Joel Robles inside the Toffees’ box, pundit Niall Quinn on Sky Sports immediately suggested Sterling could have done more to score — should he have shot earlier, perhaps, or could he be stronger?
The winger had caused so much of a problem that he’d been fouled, so why was the focus shifted to how he could have better exploited the situation? He’d not “gone down easily” after feeling a touch, he’d had his leg swiped from underneath him by a player desperately trying to defend a dangerous attack.
He was booked for diving in the 3-1 Champions League victory over Barcelona despite being clearly tripped by Samuel Umtiti. City went on to win, but the score was 0-0 at the time. Sterling has been involved in four penalty appeals in City’s last two matches; three of them were cut and dried and none of them were given.
He has been one of City’s key players under Pep Guardiola and a huge force in getting his side on the counterattack with pace. He’s been getting into the box and drawing fouls but hasn’t been rewarded for that tenacity — much to the dismay of teammate Yaya Toure.
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