Sterling has a ´big future´ – Pellegrini

Raheem Sterling in action for Manchester City against AS Roma at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Tuesday.

It was not a yearning to feature in matches like this that drove Raheem Sterling away from Liverpool, but the young England forward could be happy with his Manchester City debut, all the same, as he took just three minutes to open his account for his new club.

The goal came shortly after one of his first touches in his new shirt – an inauspicious moment he will want to forget, as he tripped over ball in an attempt to do a stepover.

Goalkeeper Joe Hart proved the shoot-out hero, saving spot-kicks from Seydou Doumbia and Seydou Keita as well as smashing one in himself.

He was desperately unlucky not to create a second goal before being substituted at halftime, garnering no sympathy from Australian referee Jarred Gillett despite a forceful challenge from Alessandro Florenzi that took out the Englishman’s legs.

“He just played 45 minutes as he’s only worked a few days”, the manager added.

But it was Nigerian 18-year-old Kelechi Iheanacho who provided the assist and then scored to give City a second-half lead.

With such an abundance of talent in the Manchester Ciy squad it’s hard to know if Sterling will even get his place in City’s first eleven, he will need a good pre season and a good debut would be half the battle.

However, all could have been forgotten for the time being but Mario Balotelli turned the tide towards him when he praised his former teammate for scoring for his former club through twitter.

Balotelli then tweeted more support for Sterling, despite his acrimonious, £49 million ($76 million) transfer from the Reds to Manchester City earlier this month. He demonstrated why he s here, not only his value as a player, he s a very young player so I think he will improve a lot in the future, playing with Yaya Toure, David Silva and the others.

“We just have to let him play and he will show how talented he is”.

The Chilean told a post-match press conference: “Well it is always important for the strikers to score”.

“I have not spoken to him about the pressure and the reaction of the fans because we did not expect this”.