When Raheem Sterling signs for Chelsea, as he is expected to this week, his transfer will be a very different one to the big breakthrough move to Manchester City in 2015. The standards are different and the expectations are set.
In picking up the 20-year-old from Liverpool, City had a raw prospect on their hands. Bundles of talent but an eccentric centre that cost him in the final third. His decision making and quality in the opposition box was improving year on year, but the feeling was that another level could come from him.
Albeit extremely young, there was an expectation that Sterling would go on to do great things, even then, but maybe not even his biggest fans would have foreseen seen him as a four-time Premier League winner with over 100 league goals before he had turned 28.
