Gary Neville questions Arsenal forward's football 'intelligence' | OneFootball

Former Manchester United full-back and prominent pundit Gary Neville claimed that Raheem Sterling doesn't have "the sort of intelligence" to adapt his game after losing his electric turn of pace.

This inability to evolve has let to a perceived decline which leaves Neville strongly doubting Sterling's suitability to the role of replacing Kai Havertz.

Havertz was Mikel Arteta's preferred 'number nine', but with Gabriel Jesus already sidelined due to a long-term knee injury and no centre forward signed in January, despite a late approach for Ollie Watkins, the Gunners are in a dire situation entering the campaign's run-in.

There is no natural replacement for Havertz, who is himself not really a striker anyway.

The job of filling in will likely go to winger Leandro Trossard, someone who has at least played centrally on occasion but is struggling for goalscoring form in 2024/25. With Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli 'false nine' options but both also injured, Sterling is left as the only other alternative.

However, the former England star has barely featured since joining on loan from Chelsea, and eight-time Premier League champion Neville has suggested that his struggles in recent seasons are down to an inability to adapt his game after starting so young.

"I think when a quick player, say Michael Owen or Raheem Sterling start at the age of 16, 17, and they get to sort of like late 20s, 30, they've already played a full career," Neville commented on a new episode of his Stick to Football podcast.

Consistent game time has been to come by this season / Ryan Pierse/GettyImages

Sterling recently turned 30, but was a regular for Liverpool at 17. Neville's assessment is that the player's body has experienced a "deterioration" and is more like that of a typical 34-year-old, who may have started at the slightly later age of 20.

"I mean, particularly players who rely upon speed," he clarified. "For Michael and Raheem, it's difficult for them to adapt into a different type of role because they don't have the skill and the sort of intelligence. They play off that speed and sharpness, whereas [Ryan] Giggs adapted and could go into central midfield. [Paul] Scholes, he obviously adapted."

Sterling's peak came at Manchester City in his early twenties, scoring 79 goals across three seasons alone from 2017 to 2020. City cashed in at precisely the right time, selling to Chelsea for £47.5m in the summer of 2022, around what they had previously paid Liverpool for the player in 2015.

But Sterling's trajectory has been in a downward direction ever since, with this one comfortably the most underwhelming season of his whole career to date.