Raheem Sterling to Man Utd transfer: Is Chelsea’s outcast ‘better than anything Ten Hag has got’?
The biggest story of this summer transfer window could yet occur with Chelsea outcast Raheem Sterling joining Manchester United.
Having been deemed surplus to requirements at Stamford Bridge by newly installed head coach Enzo Maresca, the 82-time capped England international will be seeking a fourth professional club to join.
Should he make Old Trafford his new home, Sterling would create a unique piece of history. No one has ever played for Manchester’s two biggest clubs (United and City), as well as Liverpool, and when you throw Chelsea into the mix, it’s truly an exceptional résumé.
This incredible piece of potential trivia aside, there has to be a reason why the Red Devils are making such a move, especially when it seemed Erik ten Hag was content with his attacking options. As it turns out, Sterling will not be an addition but rather filling a spot as Jadon Sancho, who hasn’t enjoyed the best of relationships with Ten Hag, is making way. Indeed, the former Borussia Dortmund star is reportedly going the other way and joining the Blues revolution.
United’s wing options would then include the much-maligned Antony, the inconsistent Marcus Rashford, and the promising duo of Amad Diallo and Alejandro Garnacho.
Sterling beats all in terms of experience, but it’s fair to argue that since joining Chelsea, he’s slid backwards regarding raw numbers. During a six-year stay in which he developed into a serial goalscorer under Pep Guardiola, he averaged 14 goals and seven assists per Premier League season. In contrast, those figures dropped to seven and four, respectively, while representing the West London outfit.
Sterling returned with eight Premier League goals last term, one more than Rashford and Garnacho produced. He also created four goals, the same as Garnacho, with Rashford having half the number of assists. That being said, Troy Deeney believes Sterling is better than anyone currently at Ten Hag’s disposal. “He’s better than anything they’ve got there, so yeah,” he said on Sky Sports News.
“At the moment he’s delivering more than what Marcus [Rashford] is doing. He probably gives more of a leadership role to the likes of [Alejandro] Garnacho and Amad [Diallo] who scored on the weekend.
“So those guys will look at Raheem, see that he’s won it at [Manchester] City, see what he’s done at Liverpool, see what he’s done at the international stage and think ‘right I can learn from that’.”
When factoring in where Sterling has been utilised recently during his Chelsea stay, predominantly on the left flank, a Man Utd academy graduate (Rashford) could be affected by this proposed signing. But when it came to his absolute best performances, which came at City, he was deployed on the right, where the coaching team, including Mikel Arteta, had to realign him for the role.
“He’d picked up a few bad habits along the way. He’d played on the inside a lot or out on the left wing. When you move to the right wing, the direction and angle of possession coming to you is very different. When the ball reached him he really had his gaze fixed on it – rather than half-touch instinctive control and the vision of what’s around him,” the Arsenal manager recalled in Pep’s City: The Making of a Superteam.
If Ten Hag follows this blueprint, Diallo, who has started getting consistent minutes and realising his potential, might see his development hindered.
“I think Sterling would be a good addition if he did come. You wonder what this would mean for Antony? I think he’d become fifth choice for United,” former United defender Rio Ferdinand said on his YouTube channel.
“Amad has been playing recently and he may be looking over his shoulder and could be thinking ‘please don’t come’ but competition for places is good. Raheem is someone that certainly has something to prove.”
It’s also worth acknowledging Sterling’s versatility in the final third. Guardiola and his subsequent Chelsea bosses have often fielded him as a false nine, where he’s regularly found the net. At Liverpool, he first played in a deep-lying forward (or number 10) role, but he’s been seldom deployed there — indeed, 19 times across the past decade.
United, who reportedly held exploratory talks over a deal, stress an agreement is not guaranteed, but it does underscore sporting director Dan Ashworth’s desire to see if he can use the situation at Stamford Bridge to his club’s advantage.
Any deal will be on their terms. As touched upon, Sancho is known to have admirers at Chelsea, but Juventus are interested. However, they continue to resist United’s desire to include an obligation to buy in any loan deal and also do not want to pay all of the 24-year-old’s wages.
Sterling is known to have been a childhood United fan and even attended the 2007 FA Cup final between his present and potentially future club. “I shouldn’t really say this — not now, definitely not now! — but when I was younger, I was a massive United fan,” he said in a 2019 interview. “I had an old United kit from when they won the FA Cup the last time.”
If he fulfils a childhood dream of turning out for Man Utd, then it will go down as one of the most sensational modern transfers, especially considering his past.
