Sterling has been brilliant at times. He's 20 for god's sake, he's not going to be consistently good all the time at his age. He is not second rate.
Agreed. He has great situational awareness, finds space in close quarters very well, have seen him stop play and make delicious passes to teammates in better positions, he has a good footballing brain for someone just 20 and that's what the competition will pay for. As for his end product, you can always work on that. That said, his mind (or his agent's) seems made up. Get as much as we can for him and invest in a finished article, a footballer we can use now and save on the time it would require Sterling to become the finished product.