The England worldwide endured a hard first season at City after his acrimonious £44million move from Liverpool and then failed to impress at Euro 2016.
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The 28-year-old would also sit out his side’s EFL Cup third-round game against Swansea.
The alleged offense was committed against West Ham’s Winston Reid during the Citizens’ 3-1 win on Sunday. City now is ahead of United and Chelsea on goal difference – and Guardiola said there is plenty more to come. Are we expected to go to Chelsea and City and win without our best players?
“We played here against Sunderland and controlled that game, but we were not brilliant like we were today”. But it needed Sterling’s injury-time goal – when he rounded the goalkeeper and scored from an acute angle – to see off a West Ham side that improved in the second half. We feel the players believe in what we do and that is more satisfying for the coach of course, but that without results is nothing. “We have to bring some players in…we need new blood”, he said. “We can’t play much better than that when you’re missing six, seven, eight top players and you’re playing against them (City)”.
At least one flawless record will go when United plays City at Old Trafford in the first round of games after the worldwide break. Creating more space for him to run at defenders seems to be the key difference in Sterling this season.
“I didn’t see it so I can not comment”, he told a news conference.
Asked about the Aguero-Reid clash, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola was non-committal, telling Sky Sports: “I did not see anything”.
He had been made aware of it, however, and accepted retrospective action and a ban could follow.
Bilic played down the matter and said that Reid’s substitution had nothing to do with the incident, adding: “I didn’t see it at all”.
If it happens, we accept and adapt. “I didn’t see so I can not comment”. I don’t know what it was about really, but I know he can’t really talk in there [dressing room]. “He said it was because he had got something in the throat”. He said the anger he showed after the incident was because he had wanted to make a substitution.
“Reborn? I keep seeing that word”, Sterling told Sky Sports. “They had their chances too, because we were open, but in the second half I was more than happy”.
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Against Manchester City, West Ham proved what we already know, they need options going forward and simply do not have them at the moment.
