da dobrowin： Even though the transfer window is now firmly behind us, the titans of European football are always on the lookout for possible deals. And according to The Daily Mail, Barcelona might cast their gaze upon Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling in the future. If true, this could spell trouble for a certain 22-year-old winger already within Blaugrana’s midst.
What’s the word then?
da bet nacional： Ousmane Dembele’s career at Barcelona has definitely been a strange one so far.
He is still Blaugrana’s second-highest transfer in the history of the club, only behind another failed project, Philippe Coutinho. But even though that meant he was supposed to be their next big thing, the Catalans are very much still waiting for his full arrival at the scene.
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This was, of course, highly affected by the constant injury woes that kept him from showing his true colours. Last season, the Frenchman missed out on a total of 13 games due to three different fitness issues.
But if those injuries won’t end his Blaugrana tale, Sterling just might as The Daily Mail state that Barcelona could up their interest for the 24-year-old winger once Xavi Hernandez takes over the team in the not so distant future.
The beginning of the end
Sterling wasn’t always this prolific forward that’s now tearing up the Premier League.
Earlier in his career, the 24-year-old Englishman was known for his troubles in converting the chances and slotting in the goals. Pep Guardiola himself addressed that issue back in November 2018 when he said:
“The first season, he was scared [in front of goal], he was looking [and thinking], ‘Who is the guy I am going to pass the ball to?’. “He was not looking [to score even though] the keeper was there. We spoke about that and said, ‘Try to score goals’.”
The numbers also don’t lie either – in 2015/16, Sterling only managed to net 11 goals to his name, and the season after that, in 2016/17, he tallied only ten.
While those are not bad numbers by any means, they do seem silly when we compare them to 25 just last campaign and his current tally of seven in a total of eight games across all competitions in 2019/20. His transformation from a goal-shy forward to a goal-machine has been extraordinary.
With all of that being said, it’s easy to see why Barcelona are interested in him, and how his potential arrival could push Dembele completely out of the picture.
After all, it was Xavi himself who once dubbed Sterling as one of the players who “can be the world’s best” in the future. For that reason, Daily Mail’s claim that the Spaniard might push for his transfer once he’s in charge of Blaugrana suddenly doesn’t seem like another generic transfer fairytale.
Can Dembele really compete with that when he’s already struggling for regular football at the Catalan capital?
Only time will tell.