Pep Guardiola has urged Raheem Sterling to learn to cope with hostility at Anfield.
Sterling left Liverpool on a sour note to join the current league defending champions and his return to Merseyside has always attracted boos from the Liverpool fans.
City lost three times last season to Liverpool and that added to Sterling’s bad outing against his former side.
“The reason why last time he didn’t start– the only time he didn’t start]– was for another reason, a tactical movement, so Kyle Walker can attack more on the right side than him. That was always the plan. But I don’t think about [the abuse] because even, if that happens, being so young, maybe it affects him, maybe it doesn’t. I didn’t speak to him. He has to learn to [deal] with that.” Guardiola said.
“When he is a player for a long time with us, hopefully, he will be for a long time with us, he will go many, many times to Anfield. That is normal he will go out there. He has many good memories of his period there. Of course, the Liverpool fans want him to play bad and he wants to play good, but I won’t leave him out for that reason.” He added.
Guardiola will lead his City this evening looking for a first win at Anfield that last came in 2003.