Dire Mebude has revealed how personal training from Raheem Sterling helped him maul Manchester United and get his Scotland Under-21s career off to a flier.
The former Rangers kid took just nine minutes to score on his debut for the youngsters in midweek as they endured a 3-2 defeat to Sweden in a friendly over in Spain. It’s been a great week for the 18-year-old after he helped with four assists as Man City thrashed United 6-0 in their youth league meeting last Sunday.
Mebude has trained with Pep Guardiola’s first team since he joined City from the Ibrox side two years ago. And he’s revealed he was getting tutoring from star Sterling before last summer’s move to Chelsea. He said: “For my goal, I took the ball on the inside, beat a few men, then the ball was bouncing so I just hit it. It was a great goal and moment for me. It was on my debut as well, so it felt special. It’s going well so far this season at City. I’m getting regular game time and happy playing with the 21s. It’s really challenging but good. It’s always good to beat United 6-0! I got four assists, so it was a very good game. I really like Raheem. He was my man, I wanted to learn off him.
“I spoke to him and he gave me a few tips, showed me how it’s done. He was a young boy coming through at one time too but he probably excelled a bit quicker than me! But he’s been through it all. He would show me parts of his game he needed to improve and where he thought I could improve. It was really good to have that.”
Mebude is following in the footsteps of his brother Dapo, who was also at Ibrox and is now at Belgian club Oostende having won three Under- 21 caps. And the younger Mebude admits there was no way he could turn down City when they moved for him while he was at Rangers.
He said: “It was a big decision to move down. I was a bit young, I was 16. But when Man City come calling, you can’t really turn it down. Everything at Rangers was really good as well and I loved it just as much.
“I’ve been to watch a few Rangers games since leaving and watch them in the Lowland League online. My older brother told me all about the 21s and I’ve watched him play a few times for them, so I was just happy to play my part as well. He did well when he played, so I’m just trying to follow in his footsteps.”
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