The evolution of Raheem Sterling (or why we may not need Suarez anymore)

Rumor has it Real Madrid is very high on Raheem Sterling.  I'm not sure how realistic their intentions are, but if it is true, we need to do everything we can to hold on to him.  He is ultimately more important than Suarez because he is 19-years-old and exhibits 'Messi class' potential.  If he gets even remotely close to that, he's worth what ever LFC has to pay him.

I was curious to see what Sterling's potential output of the next two seasons could be, so using a very simple projection model based on his progression over the last two seasons, I came up with this:

	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16
age	18	19	20	21
app (sub)	19(5)	24(9)	27(7)	28(8)
mins	1748	2220	2520	2935
goals	2	9	23	32
assists	2	5	7	10
chances	37	51	60	72
npg90	0.1	0.36	0.82	0.98
gcp90	0.21	0.57	1.07	1.29
ccp90	1.91	2.06	2.14	2.21
TTI90	12.3	12.1	12	11.7

Before anyone takes leave of their senses, these are max potential projections.  I'm not saying Sterling won't score more than 23 goals next season, but it's highly unlikely.  What is probable though is that he'll have more than 7 assists and that his goal created per 90 will be around 1.07.  Let's say he only reaches 80% of his goal max, which means he scores 18 goals.  To reach a 1.07 gcp90, he'll need 12 total assists, a very realistic achievement.

As you might have noticed, with these projections, Sterling will break the Prem goal scoring record in two years.  The chances of that happening are as likely as Everton winning the league.  In fact, if he accounts for 42 goals created, it will be tied for Drogba (2009-10) for second most all-time next to Suarez from last season.  Probably not going to happen either but even if he has a 60% goal output, he finishes with 19 goals plus 10 assists, which is a decent season to say the least.

I was curious to see the progression of Messi from age 18 to 21, for a possible comparison.  Unfortunately, 'chances created' is a relatively new recorded stat, so I only included what I could.

	2005-6	2006-7	2007-8	2008-9
age	18	19	20	21
app (sub)	11(6)	23(3)	23(5)	27(4)
mins	909	1995	1998	2513
goals	2	14	10	23
assists	6	2	12	11
npg90	0.2	0.63	0.27	0.72
gcp90	0.8	0.72	0.99	1.22

Interestingly enough, his goal creation regressed from age 18 to 19 and if you take away his penalty goals, he actually only had an open field goal creation of 0.81 at age 20.  Lack of chances created makes it awfully hard to compare the two players.  By just these stats alone, Messi is far and way the better player, but will Sterling have a lapse in his career next season like the Argentinian did?  I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I'm not saying Sterling will ever reach the heights of Messi, but he does possess the potential to do so. You don't get mentioned in the same breathe as Real Madrid if you don't.