Journalist Julien Laurens has been discussing a potential exit for Raheem Sterling away from Manchester City this summer in exchange for Harry Kane.
The 26-year-old has been transformed at the Etihad since his arrival from Liverpool in 2015, with a large dose of that down to the management of Pep Guardiola, turning him into arguably one of the biggest attacking threats in the country, with goals and assists galore since the Spaniard took over in 2016.
Some reports, though, suggest that things are not alright under the surface, and that Sterling could be on his way out of Manchester very soon.
A recent report suggests that Manchester City have tabled a £100m bid for Kane – a bid that is likely to be rejected – whilst other reports suggest that City could offer up Sterling in a swap deal in order to entice Tottenham to accept a lesser fee for the England captain.
But speaking on ESPN FC, Laurens felt that for a number of reasons, a deal like that would be rather difficult to pull off:
“Raheem Sterling has two years left on his contract. I believe the negotiations of a new deal have not started yet whereas he wanted them to have been started already, so maybe that’s a sign that City will be looking maybe at offering him as a cash-plus-player style of deal with Spurs.
“I’m not sure if he would accept that, I’m not sure if Spurs can pay his wages or are happy to pay his wages either. So this is a long way, it’s a long way to happen anyway, we know how difficult those deals are because how much is Raheem Sterling worth? Does he want to go there? Do Spurs even want him in the first place? So those are always difficult.”
TIF Thoughts on Julien Laurens’ comments about Raheem Sterling and Manchester City…
Will Raheem Sterling leave Manchester City this summer?
Yes
No
If Manchester City are ready and willing to sell a player in order to snap up Kane, then Sterling is one of the last people they should be looking to offload.
Whilst his numbers from this year just gone might not be as good as they have been in previous years, he’s still a very dangerous attacking threat from out wide, and although they’d be replacing him with a similarly dangerous threat through the middle in terms of Kane, that would still leave something out wide for them to replace.
They would be much better off trying to offload someone like Gabriel Jesus or a central defender, rather than someone like Sterling, which would leave City with a hole to fill either way.
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