Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville has praised the improvement that Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling has shown since moving to the Etihad Stadium five years ago.

The England international was signed for £49m, a sizeable fee at the time, and Neville believes a lot of supporters at his previous club Liverpool would not have thought he would reach the heights he has. Speaking during the Arsenal game on Saturday, he said:

“It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that he was going to come to City. People of Liverpool would have said, ‘I am not sure that he is going to become world-class, certainly not do what he is doing’. But under the instruction and guidance of Pep Guardiola, he has turned into a fantastic player.”

As Neville rightly points out, much of the credit has to go to Guardiola, who has been on Sterling’s case to be more consistent from one day since he arrived in 2016. Every season since the Spaniard was appointed, the forward has improved his goal tally,

In the 2016/17 campaign, he scored 10 goals, which went up to 23 goals in 2017/18. It increased even further to 25 goals in 2018/19 and last campaign, he managed to reach 31 in all competitions.

Contrast that with his time at Liverpool, where he scored 23 goals in 129 games, and it shows what a massive transformation Sterling has undergone since he made the switch to City.