October 15, (THEWILL) – Manchester City midfielder Raheem Sterling has stated that he is open to leaving the club.
The 26-year-old England international said he would consider making a move at the FT Business of Sport US summit.
“If there was an opportunity to go somewhere else, (for more game time), I would be open to it at this moment in time,” said Sterling, who moved to City from Liverpool in 2015 and has won three Premier League titles, one FA Cup and four League Cups with the Etihad squad.
Sterling said: “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.”
Sterling has only started twice in the league this season, in the loss to Tottenham on the opening day and the draw with Southampton, but Pep Guardiola has previously emphasised Sterling’s importance to City.
“Do you know how many incredible successes we had in the last seasons yeah? Impossible without Raheem,” Guardiola said at the press conference before City’s match against Southampton in the middle of September. “He’s such an important player.”
In the same press conference, however, Guardiola hinted that Sterling’s performance had dipped from last season.
He said, “He reached an incredibly high standard and I have to tell him this is the standard we need, for you, for all of us. And I’m pretty sure he will get it. If he’s able to do it, he will do it. And I’m so optimistic that he will do a great season.”
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Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
