Team of the Season – Raheem Sterling

Raheem Sterling is the second midfielder to feature in Fantasy Football Scout’s team of the season, having finished runner-up to Mohamed Salah in our recent poll.

The Manchester City winger earned 22.2% of the votes, after setting a new personal best score of 229 points in Fantasy Premier League (FPL) this season. That total was 80 points greater than his tally in 2016/17, despite having played just 75 minutes more. Salah was the only player to score more points (303) than Sterling in this campaign.

With 18 goals and 17 assists, he played a part in 33.0% of City’s goals this season: no team-mate was so heavily involved in their 106 league strikes.

Sterling’s starting price of £8.0m was, in hindsight, an absolute steal.

That price looked justified in Gameweek 1, however, with Sterling taking his place on the bench alongside fellow wide-men Leroy Sane and Bernardo Silva. Pep Guardiola’s pairing of Gabriel Jesus and Sergio Aguero up front in a 3-1-4-2 meant that City’s width was provided by wing-backs Kyle Walker and Danilo, with Sterling only appearing as a 78th-minute substitute.

Guardiola’s persistence with that formation led to Sterling once again starting from the bench in City’s following league game at home to Everton.

How different Sterling’s season might have been had Walker not been dismissed just before the break: Sterling appeared as a half-time substitute following a tactical rejig from Guardiola and went on to grab City’s equaliser in a 1-1 draw.

An injury-time winner for Sterling in City’s next fixture against Bournemouth was marred by his subsequent dismissal, having collected a second yellow card for excessive celebration.

Sterling’s price dipped to its lowest of the season (£7.8m) as he sat out Gameweek 4, as did his ownership: a one-match ban prompted just 111,976 managers to hold.

Following his return to the City squad in Gameweek 5, Sterling went on to start in 28 of his side’s 34 remaining Premier League fixtures.

He racked up 40 points in the next four Gameweeks, a tally which included a brace in the 5-0 home win over Crystal Palace and a season-high 15 points in City’s 7-2 demolition of Stoke City.

Confounding worries over rotation, Sterling made 17 consecutive appearances from Gameweek 11 onwards, starting all but one of those matches: the exception being a 33-minute cameo in City’s 0-0 draw at Palace on New Year’s Eve, the second of three league fixtures the Citizens contested in seven days.

Sterling served up ten double-digit hauls across the season, including two ‘hat-tricks’ of 10+ points in Gameweeks 18-20 and 34-36. Only Kevin De Bruyne (16) created more assists than Sterling in 2017/18, meanwhile.

By the season’s end, Sterling was the second-most popular Fantasy asset in midfield, featuring in 27.6% of all FPL teams. A finishing price of £9.1m represented a season-high cost, too.

Salah (113) and Richarlison (74) were the only midfielders to have more shots inside the box than Sterling (67) this season, while a total of 26 big chances was second only to the Egyptian winger (43) among players in their classification.

Sterling’s 263 penalty box touches would also have been a league-high among midfielders were it not for the 32-goal Liverpool man.

A common theme therefore emerges: but for the exceptional performances of Salah, Sterling would have probably been FPL’s player of the year.

Sterling’s total of 19 bonus points was only the fifth-highest in the City squad, with 12 big chances missed and 33 shots off target hurting his score on the Bonus Points System (BPS). An average of 12.3 minutes per Baseline BPS was the worst mean among City’s midfielders this season.

The Prospects

Like Salah, a price increase is to be expected for Sterling next season.

Given that Kevin De Bruyne started 2017/18 at a cost of £10.0m, a rise to £10.5-11m for the England international would raise few eyebrows.

Sterling played more minutes (2584) than Sane (2415) or Bernardo Silva (1514), an indication of his place as Guardiola’s first-choice option on the flank.

Yet the team will continue to evolve over the summer, with the potential arrival of Riyad Mahrez adding to the intense competition for places in the front three.

As always, Guardiola’s tactics will be a significant factor in how we assess the City attack.

Last season, Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus started up front together in four of the first six Gameweeks before an injury to raiding left-back Benjamin Mendy forced a re-think as City switched to 4-1-2-3.

Indeed, Sterling could also offer an option through the middle if his manager goes with two frontmen.

On the downside, a World Cup campaign with England may affect the time he has to recuperate ahead of next season, depending on their progress in the tournament.

Sterling would not be the only City player at risk of fatigue: 17 players on the club’s books will head to Russia this summer.

Potentially, then, that could lead to more rotation at the start of the campaign.

Yet the potency of Guardiola’s attack means that even when his minutes come under threat, Sterling is likely to remain a risk worth taking.

He started just 29 league matches last year – with four outings off the bench – but he still finished runner-up to Salah. His total of 229 points was 20 ahead of City’s second-best De Bruyne, who started 36 matches by comparison.

While the Belgian will remain the most secure of City’s big-hitters, then, Sterling’s improved output under Guardiola could see him again emerge as their go-to option.