Has Raheem Sterling already started his last game for Arsenal?

Mikel Arteta handed Raheem Sterling a rare start as Arsenal looked to navigate their final Champions League league-phase match against Girona on Wednesday night.

Despite some positive flashes early on during the 2-1 win in Spain, Sterling’s performance was overshadowed by a missed penalty in the dying embers of the contest.

Sterling’s loan spell from Chelsea hasn’t quite got going — and on the latest episode of Handbrake Off, Ian Stone was joined by Art de Roché and Adrian Clarke to discuss the winger’s struggles.

A partial transcript has been edited for clarity and length. The full episode is available on the “Handbrake Off” feed on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 

Ian: Let’s talk about Raheem Sterling. I actually thought that he started pretty well. I liked his energy and I liked how he was playing trying to make those little triangles. But he shouldn’t have taken a penalty. I think we can all see that he didn’t look particularly confident. Is that going to affect him? He’s not an inexperienced player, you have bad moments on a football pitch — that’s how it works. But the best ones do recover quickly, and it’s not like he hasn’t been there and done that. But it’s not happening for him at Arsenal, is it?

Art: I don’t think the penalty should have too big an impact. Like you, I thought he started the game well and was probably Arsenal’s best player in the first 10 minutes off that left. You saw him have an actual spark in the way he carried the ball. The little pass he made for Calafiori’s offside goal was nice as well. But it’s just annoying and frustrating that it’s almost a similar story to the week where Arsenal played Manchester United and then Tottenham.

He was really bright against Manchester United and then you come to the Tottenham game and he’s a shadow of that. That all just seemed to happen in the space of one game yesterday and it’s hard to see him being an option from the start in the Premier League or knockout stages of the Champions League off the wings. It’s just not quite happened for him.

Ian: Adrian, he’s not starting another game, is he? To be fair, he might come off the bench for 10 or 15 minutes. But unless there are injuries he’s not starting, is he?

Adrian: No, he hasn’t grabbed the opportunity, I think that’s fair to say. Nice in flashes but probably run down too many blind alleys. Just lacking confidence. The penalty incident did annoy me a little bit, I’ve got to say. I thought it was the wrong time to give out a sort of ‘pick-me-up’ penalty. There were much better penalty-takers available.

I say this because Raheem Sterling has now converted two of his last eight penalties excluding shootouts. So, he’d missed two of seven outside of shootouts (before Girona). Anyone who’s missed two of seven shouldn’t be on pens again, that’s a terrible ratio.

And that could have cost us; if that goal was allowed to stand that they scored towards the end and made it 2-2, we would drop down to fifth. Fifth place means you could easily get City, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, any of those teams in the last-16. So, it really mattered, and I was hugely surprised that they went for that ‘pick-me-up’ pen.

Ian: Do you think he plays with his head down a little bit? I play five-a-side on a Monday and there are certain players you think, ‘Get your head up, get your head up, just see!’ I think it happens at all levels, it really does.

You get players who are so concentrated, they’re running and they’re just looking at the ball and they don’t see the runs (and) don’t see you’re waving. You don’t want to shout because the marker will come across so you just sort of see if you can wave. I get that feeling with Raheem Sterling, there are passes on — quick first-time passes back the other way — and he doesn’t make them because he hasn’t got his head up.

Adrian: We’ve all got the same frustrations. When I think about Raheem and his best moments, for me they’re scoring goals inside the six-yard box throughout his career. And he very rarely pops up in those positions for Arsenal, I think he almost plays too wide. I’d love to see him just make those runs in as a second striker.

Ian: Yeah (runs) round the back. Against Fulham when Martinelli played that ball in that Saka got on the end of and the goal was disallowed; that’s the sort of position Sterling often used to find himself in for Manchester City. Around the back coming in on a cross and he’d suddenly sweep it in. He got 20 goals one season doing that.

You can listen to full episodes of Handbrake Off for free on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

(Top Photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)