It always seemed like a slightly odd transfer, and Raheem Sterling and Chelsea isn’t working out. So where next if he can’t make it work at Stamford Bridge?
The January transfer window has brought about a fresh round of Chelsea’s often scattergun-looking transfer policy, and it’s likely that there will be departures as well as arrivals. With this being the first transfer window for embattled manager Graham Potter, these changes might be substantial.
The benefit of hindsight has offered the perspective that there was much wrong with their summer transfer activity, which assembled an unbalanced combination of players who simply didn’t seem to even complement each other, never mind being able to mesh together as a properly functioning team.
And caught up in the middle of this mess is Raheem Sterling. It seems fair to say that Sterling’s move from Manchester City to Chelsea has not beeen conspicuously successful. He’s scored four goals in the Premier League and two in the Champions League – not an especially impressive return on 21 appearances, all the more so when we factor in that three of those four league goals were scored before the end of August.
But the issue with Sterling is broader than can be summed up by the goals scored column. He was signed for a different Chelsea manager, and the club didn’t seem certain of why they were buying him even then. As Potter has grappled with getting a consistent team in the face of a fairly horrendous injury list, Sterling has been out on the wing, carrying the body language of someone who realises they’ve made a mistake.
It’s worth taking into account just how turbulent Chelsea’s year has been. Twelve months ago, they had a different owner, a different manager and quite a few different players. The abrupt departure of Roman Abramovich was an upheaval. The time when Chelsea were operating under a government license was an upheaval. The sale of the club was an upheaval. The arrival of ten new players during the summer and a total of 29 (!) leaving was an upheaval.
The season started. The departure of Thomas Tuchel after six games of the league campaign was an upheaval. Integrating Potter and his pilfered-from-Brighton backroom staff was an upheaval. The rapidly escalating injury disaster was and remains an upheaval. And everything that’s happened since the end of May has been under the watch of a new group of owners led by a man with no previous experience of running a Premier League…
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