It's certainly no coincidence Scotty. The skill, pace, ability to make space and savvy, he has. were things which were missing from our forward play for all of the first half of the season.
Definitely mate, you are bang on when you say he has some 'savvy' for the position and when Studge is fully fit Sterling still gets the nod as our next best option up front for me. He can't be easy to mark, he can play on the shoulder, he likes to drop off and play in the hole and he naturally drifts to the left as well. So long as you have clever runners (like we do) such as Lallana, Coutinho and Henderson to run beyond him or move into the spaces he vacates it makes for a very fluid (and bloody difficult to mark) way of playing.
I had doubts about him playing up top against two centre backs of such size in Kompany and Mangala but he made them look like a right pair of plonkers. Don't think I'll be questioning him being played up top again. Him and Sturridge as a pairing could work out.
It'd be interesting to see the two of them together up there at some stage for sure. Despite Balotelli showing a few green shoots recently I get the impression Brendan still isn't happy about compromising our pressing game (which inevitably happens when Balo is on the pitch) so maybe we may see them play together.
I also think that Sterling will get better in the role the more he plays, there has been evidence of that in the relatively short time he has been playing in the 9 and it will only improve his development in the long run and make him a more rounded player.
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