Welcome to my first Fantasy Football Scout community article, where I will take look at how Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola’s innovative tactics and tutoring could turn Raheem Sterling into Fantasy gold.
Pep as a tutor
Guardiola has a strong track record of getting the most out of players. At Barcelona he helped Sergio Busquets to become one of the best defensive midfielders in the world and even Pedro, who is now with Chelsea, improved significantly on the wing, under Guardiola’s tutelage. Even the seemingly already perfect Lionel Messi improved with Guardiola at the helm at Barcelona. Sterling looks to be among the latest projects that Guardiola has taken on in his quest to improve players.
Formation
The formation Guardiola will probably use in the attacking phase for most of the season is 3-2-4-1. This is different from a usual 4-3-3 , where there is usually two versus two on the flanks, but often little space for one on one encounters. This means that wingers under this system do not often get great scoring or assisting opportunities.
What 3-2-4-1 does is overload the middle so the opposite team has to commit a lot of players to the middle of the park, leaving wingers with more space out wide and a greater chance to find space to score or put in a cross should they get past the opposing team’s full back. We have already seen how Sterling has benefitted from this system, earning a pair of assists in Man City’s demolition of Steaua Bucharest in the Champions League qualifier midweek, and another in Gameweek 1’s encounter with Sunderland.
Rotation Fears To Ease
There is a caveat though around the team sheet, with Sterling having to compete with a number of players with experience of wing play, including Nolito, Jesus Navas, David Silva and Kevin de Bruyne. Personally, I think there are four key reasons why Sterling will get the nod.
- Sterling can play very well on both wings
- Jesus Navas isn’t an amazing player by any means so I don’t think that Pep will give him too many starts in Premier League games.
- New signing Leroy Sane is currently injured and new to the Premier League and may require time to adapt.
- I think Silva and De Bruyne are likely to be used in central roles this season, lessening the competition on the wing. Sterling and Nolito look to be first choice wingers.
Conclusion
Sterling will be able to use his main strength of taking on full backs a lot more than previously and this season looks set to benefit from more game time. At 8.0 he looks like a great midfield addition to our watch lists.
7 years, 8 months ago
Thanks for this. With so many good mids this season I think Sterling could go under the radar. Starts and points though suggest you are definitely on to something. Will definitely monitor this situation.
Congrats on your first community article btw 🙂