Manchester City must be more ruthless says Raheem Sterling after 6-3 win

Raheem Sterling feels Manchester City need to learn to be more ruthless after holding off an unlikely Leicester comeback in a high-scoring Boxing Day thriller.

The Premier League leaders were made to sweat before eventually prevailing 6-3 in an enthralling encounter which Pep Guardiola described as a “rollercoaster”. City had raced into a 4-0 lead inside 25 minutes only to be pegged back to 4-3 before late goals from Aymeric Laporte and Sterling – his second of the game – finally secured the points.

After wins over struggling Leeds and Newcastle by an aggregate score of 11-0 in the previous two games, Sterling felt this was a wake-up call for the champions. “It was a game we needed to finish off,” said the England forward, who has now scored eight goals in his last 10 appearances in all competitions. “It was a good [first] 45 [minutes] but these are games we have got to put to bed. That is the challenge.

“We have got to keep that concentration and in the first 20 minutes of the second half we didn’t have that. We are disappointed to concede those goals but we kept the focus, kept trying to play and got the result we needed in the end.”

City’s victory was their ninth in succession and, with second-placed Liverpool not in action, it took them six points clear at the top of the table halfway through their campaign. “It has been a decent start so far,” Sterling said. “We need to keep the focus and go into the new year with the same mentality. We need to keep going and that is all we can do.

“They countered us and we got punished,. Every time they attacked, they created chances. But we are happy we got the win in the end and we want to keep that going. It is nine games [in a row] in the Premier League now.”

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