By Jamie Jackson/The Guardian


Raheem Sterling’s £49mn acquisition is the instant reinvigoration Manchester City require. Since Carlos Tevez, David Silva, Sergio Agüero, Yaya Touré and Mario Balotelli arrived at the Etihad Stadium between 2009-11 the club has suffered a quality and glamour deficit.
Fernando, Fernandinho, Aleksandar Kolarov, Edin Dzeko, Stevan Jovetic, Eliaquim Mangala, Jes?s Navas, Jack Rodwell, Javi Garc?a, Scott Sinclair. The Sheikh Mansour sales receipts have too often been marked John Lewis rather than Harrods as a long list of middling rather than boutique purchases were made.
With Sterling to don the sky blue livery next season, City signal an end to this. The team is refreshed and renewed. This single transfer means the XI Manuel Pellegrini can choose will be injected with a desperately needed cocktail of pace, youth, flair, skill and rawness that make the 20-year-old second only to Wayne Rooney in the England hierarchy.
Yet for some the jury remains out. Is the kid merely a mercenary? A puppet of his agent, Aidy Ward, and a chancer yet to prove himself? Prime fodder for the “what has he ever done in the game?” merchants.
One answer to the last question is to have made himself an established international as a teenager and started England’s opening World Cup game at Brazil 2014 against Italy in the vaunted No10 position. To shunt Wayne Rooney out to the left as Roy Hodgson was moved to do to his captain is no shabby entry on the Sterling CV.
To rip apart Manchester United at Old Trafford when asked to play as a trequartista for virtually the first time as Sterling did in Liverpool’s 3-0 victory at Old Trafford two seasons ago is also no skeleton in the career closet.
That afternoon of 16 March 2014 was when the former Queens Park Rangers boy announced he could be a bona fide superstar. When the team-sheet fell and Brendan Rodgers had named the 19-year-old as the playmaker, the fulcrum of Liverpool at the home of their auld enemy, the cognoscenti’s eyebrows were raised.
Yet by the time Sterling was replaced on 72 minutes he had put the swagger and fluidity into a crushing win for the visitors. Here was irrefutable evidence of Sterling’s star quality and potential to pilot his career on a skyward trajectory.
This becomes Sterling’s great challenge now: to elevate his displays to world-beater level on virtually every game day. It is the mark of the very best and how Pellegrini and fans hope he will perform. If he does so, personal satisfaction and team glory are the dividends. Sterling can be the difference in winning the Premier League or not. He can be the man who propels City beyond the last 16 of the Champions League (where they have fallen in the past two years) and into the competition’s business end.
In doing so Sterling would ease the burden on David Silva as team magician with his own ilk of X-factor. Pellegrini continually states he wishes his City to play just one way: on the front foot, constantly steamrollering the opposition. What Sterling can bring is a differing method of attack. A variety featuring strength, direction, scintillating dribbling and a Roadrunner turn of heel.
In his time as one of Liverpool’s three amigos, alongside Luis Su?rez and Daniel Sturridge, Sterling thrived. Now he can join Silva and Agüero to form City’s own frightening attack trio. What Sterling certainly has is no excuses.
In April’s BBC interview that made it clear he wanted out of Anfield, Sterling said: “It’s not about the money at all. It’s never been about money. I talk about winning trophies throughout my career. That’s all I talk about. I don’t talk about how many cars I’m going to drive, how many houses I’ve got. I just purely want to be the best I can be.”
He has his wish. He is surrounded by a far better class of footballer than at Liverpool. He is at a club that has paraded two Premier League championships in three seasons and which has serious pretensions to add the European Cup to the trophy room. So now is the time for Sterling to show he deserves the big move worth £180,000 a week and the chance to stack up the honours he claims are craved. But the emphasis shifts.
 The onus is on him. Sterling’s quest is to be a serious factor in ensuring Manchester City regain the league title and the club becomes a genuine continental heavyweight. Achieve this and his £49mn fee will be viewed a snip.