Raheem Sterling: Goals don’t mean anything if they don’t lead to trophies

Raheem Sterling believes his goals will only mean something if they help Manchester City to more silverware.

The England forward took his tally to 17 Premier League goals for the campaign as he netted a hat-trick in City’s 5-0 thrashing of Brighton on Saturday.

While hopes of lifting the league title were ended long ago, City still hope to add Champions League and FA Cup trophies to the Carabao Cup they won in February.

And Sterling – whose goals on Saturday saw him pass the 30-mark in all competitions for club and country – hopes to play his part.

“The most important thing to me is the value of these goals, that they add to the team,” he told Sky Sports.

“At the end of day we’re trying to win the FA Cup final and win the Champions League as well, otherwise these goals don’t really mean anything.”

The 25-year-old’s strikes added to goals from Gabriel Jesus and Bernardo Silva as City recorded a second successive 5-0 win.

It has been an impressive response to last weekend’s loss at Southampton where City failed to take numerous chances.

And with an FA Cup semi-final with Arsenal approaching next weekend – before next month’s Champions League commitments – Sterling is happy City have rediscovered their goalscoring touch.

Sterling added: “I was disappointed last weekend with the loss away at Southampton, we created chances but I didn’t think we finished them.

“I think the problem we’ve had this season is we’ve been creating a lot of chances, last season and the season before we finished them, but this season we haven’t had that bit of luck. But we’re growing, we’re doing things right and that’s what we need to do.”