Shortly after Chelsea signed Raheem Sterling on the say-so of manager Thomas Tuchel two years ago, he made his Premier League debut on the opening day of the 2022-23 season in a game at Everton.
There were 20 players in the squad on that early August day. Eleven starters and nine substitutes. On Sunday – as Sterling watched his club’s game against Manchester City from his home in London – only one of those players had survived. The Spanish defender Marc Cucurella was a substitute two years ago and started the weekend defeat against City.
So there you have the modern Chelsea. Not so much a football club as a sporting version of the waltzer, a wild ride from which anybody can be thrown at any time and from which just about everybody will at some point.
Some of those players from Goodison Park are still around. Reece James is injured. Ben Chilwell is in the cold. Others are doing rather well at rival Premier League clubs.
Kai Havertz – who cost Chelsea £75m – scored for Arsenal at the weekend. The Italian midfielder Jorginho plays for Arsenal too. Mason Mount is hoping to resurrect his career at Manchester United while the Croatian Mateo Kovacic scored for City on Sunday. Yes, that was against Chelsea.
Chelsea started the season with a disappointing 2-0 defeat against Manchester City
Raheem Sterling was not included in the Blues' matchday squad against Pep Guardiola' side
Former Chelsea star Kai Havertz opened the scoring for Arsenal against Wolves on Saturday
Anyone, then, who thinks that the weekend’s brouhaha is about Sterling is really quite wrong. The 29-year-old is in the middle of it. Or on the outside of it, to be precise. But this is a Chelsea problem, a by-product of a transfer policy that continues to follow no discernible pattern. Sterling is the man stuck in the web this week. Next the big and brash spider of the Kings Road will claim another victim.
ModeRn footballers are indulged beyond measure but some things do not change. All of them need structure to work from and solid ground on which to stand. Sterling was bought by Tuchel as a lead goal scorer – the German said so at the time – and that always felt like a mistake. There was nothing on the England player’s resume to suggest he would ever fulfil that role.
Since then, Sterling has worked under five different coaches. Tuchel, Graham Potter, Frank Lampard, Mauricio Pochettino, Enzo Maresca. It’s the answer to a good quiz question but absolutely no platform on which any footballer can be asked to produce his best form.
None of which is to criticise Maresca for his decision to omit Sterling on Sunday. The new Chelsea coach has to find a way through that mass of bodies at the club’s training ground and pick eleven for a match. The only way to do that is choose the ones you fancy.
Equally, the decision of Sterling’s advisors to release a statement in reaction to Mail Sport’s story about their client’s exclusion was questionable. In fact, it was a mistake. It made Sterling come across as entitled and precious when he isn’t. Sometimes it’s better to let silence talk for you and this may have been one of those occasions. That statement placed Sterling on the wrong side of the debate, even if the clarity it sought referred to the future rather than one isolated football decision.
Sterling's camp revealed to Mail Sport on Sunday that he is 'seeking clarity' over his future
Enzo Maresca said the shock axing of the star from the squad was 'a technical decision'
The 29-year-old Englishman has worked with five managers during his time at Chelsea
Sterling will also look back at his two years at Chelsea and know that he could have played better football. He has lacked consistency and his numbers are not good enough for a player of his experience and quality. At the start of last season he looked sharp and dangerous coming off the right side under Mauricio Pochettino only for a young player called Cole Palmer to arrive from City of all places. That was the end of that one almost immediately.
When these things happen, footballers simply have to respond. It’s called competition. Sterling arguably hasn’t risen to it often enough or well enough, with City, Chelsea or indeed with England.
At Chelsea this summer, he figured in pre-season games, believed he’d had good conversations with Maresca about his role and had been asked to feature in some of the club’s summer media roll-outs. And then it changed and that blind-sided him.
Those close to him believe the volte-face may have been at the behest of people higher up the Chelsea food chain than the coach. It is easy to see the argument, though it is one firmly refuted by Chelsea and indeed Maresca. The two players who played on the left on Sunday – Christopher Nkunku and substitute Pedro Neto – cost more than £100m between them. Maybe there is pressure – spoken or otherwise – for them to feature.
Sterling made 31 appearances in the Premier League last season, scoring eight goals in total
He may now be forced to look for an exit route from Stamford Bridge amid the surprise axing
That kind of money is not usually spent to see players sitting on the sidelines but then at Chelsea it also kind of is. It’s an old criticism of the club but it’s also one that endures.
Maresca also has another left-sided player of note to think about, for example. The Ukrainian Mykhailo Mudryk cost Chelsea almost £90m when he was bought from Shakthar Donetsk in the January of 2023. Six months after Sterling’s debut, his great champion Tuchel was already long gone by the time Mudryk arrived. Of course he was. By the April, his replacement Potter had gone too.
And so it goes on. Chelsea continue to spin the wheel like drunks in a casino hoping that eventually their number will come up enough times to fool everyone that they know what they are doing.
All the while, as night follows day, players like Raheem Sterling will get caught in the backdraft. How they choose to deal with it may not always be perfect.