Raheem Sterling of Manchester City has considered leaving the club over failure to gain regular playing time.
The 26-year-old disclosed this while speaking at the FT Business of Sports US Summit, saying he has thought about exiting Manchester City to join new club.
He said. “If there was an opportunity to go somewhere else, (for more game time), I would be open to it at this moment in time.”
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Aspiring to move abroad to continue his football career as a regular starter, Sterling added:“ As I said, football is the most important thing to me – challenges that I have set myself from a young age and dreams as well, to play abroad.”
“As an English player all I know is the Premier League and I have always had something down (in me) that maybe one day I would love to play abroad to see how I would come up against that challenge.”
Pep Guardiola, the City’s manager has lost confidence in the English winger who was off form to have scored just 14 goals last season.
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The form was a declination to his 2019 / 2020 campaign when he was at the top of form by netting 30 times in 51 competitions.
In light of that, Guardiola has found it hard to play him in his team’s squad in the ongoing campaign.
The former Bayern Munich and Barcelona’s coach had only thrusted the Jamaican-born forward into City’s starting line-ups on two occassions this season.
Relegated to a regular substitute under Guardiola, Sterling has scored just one goal in 7 league matches so far, started just two and came in from the bench in the rest of the five.
He also started one UEFA Champions League game, and another as a substitute registering no shots on target.
Sterling is even a doubt in City’s starting line-ups against Burnley they will be hosting in next League fixture on Saturday, 16 Oct 2021.
That said, the 50-year-old coach does not cease to hold Sterling in esteem as he last month revealed: “Our incredible successes over the last few seasons would have been impossible without Raheem.”
“He is such an important player, he reaches incredibly high standards and I have to tell him those are the standards he has to keep for himself and the team and I am sure he will return to that. I am optimistic he will have a very good season.”
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