Raheem Sterling is being forced out the door at Chelsea, and he could reportedly move to Manchester United this week. We ask: is this a good idea?
Nobody could ever accuse Raheem Sterling of trying too hard to please everyone.
That’s because he has never taken the easy route when it comes to changing clubs. But from Sterling’s perspective, each move has made sense at the time and has been perfectly justified.
When he left Liverpool for Manchester City in 2015, the supporters weren’t happy with him because they viewed the move as financially motivated – something Sterling denied. He had rejected a series of new contract offers during the 2014-15 season, went public with an interview with the BBC about his contract situation, and then asked to be left out of Liverpool’s pre-season tour to Asia to force through his move.
Liverpool and City weren’t yet consistent title rivals, but they had gone head to head in the 2013-14 title race, and while the two clubs didn’t particularly dislike one another – like Liverpool and Manchester United, say – Sterling’s decision to move was still an unpopular one. He was booed every time he faced Liverpool for the next few years.
He quickly justified swapping red for sky blue, though, winning four Premier League titles and six more domestic cup trophies at City. Whether or not it was financially motivated, City matched his ambitions as a player better than Liverpool were able to, and there would have been no regret about moving.
Sterling’s next move came in 2022 when he signed for Chelsea. This transfer was less acrimonious because City and Liverpool were so dominant at the time that moving anywhere else wasn’t nearly as controversial. But even so, his choice to join another big-six rival was never going to be entirely popular.
Again, though, it made sense for Sterling. He was starting fewer games for City, who had signed Jack Grealish in his position for £100 million a year earlier. So, after seven years at the Etihad, Sterling was losing his grip on a starting spot, and the chance to move to Chelsea came up.
It’s understandable that he didn’t want to turn down the chance to join what would have been seen at the time as the start of Graham Potter’s exciting Stamford Bridge rebuild. It did, however, mean Sterling joined another of the Premier League’s biggest clubs. (Speaking of not taking the easy route, he was joining a club that had three years earlier banned a fan for racially abusing Sterling during a game against City.)
When he played his first game for Chelsea, he became just the seventh player in Premier League history to play for at least three of the traditional big six (Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham), after Nicolas Anelka, Emmanuel Adebayor, Yossi Benayoun, William Gallas, Kolo Touré, and Daniel Sturridge.
If he is to move to United, he’ll become only the second of those – after Anelka – to play for at least four of the six biggest clubs in English football.
Played for 3+ of the Premier League’s ‘big six’ clubs
- Nicolas Anelka: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man City.
- Emmanuel Adebayor: Arsenal, Man City, Tottenham.
- Yossi Benayoun: Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool.
- William Gallas: Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham.
- Kolo Touré: Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool.
- Raheem Sterling: Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool.
- Daniel Sturridge: Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool.
It’s fair to say that none of those players was entirely popular at every club they’ve played for. It always takes fans a little longer to warm to a player who they’ve previously watched in another team’s colours. Those players will always need more success on the pitch to be taken in than a signing from outside their team’s rivals.
Of that group, Touré probably got closest to being loved by each set of fans, but he won the league at both as part of Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’ and at City, and very nearly won it at Liverpool, too.
Sterling remains a popular figure at City, and enough time has passed (and the club have won enough in the intervening period) for Liverpool fans to have largely forgiven and forgotten what happened back in 2015.
Most of them probably just recall Sterling’s time at the club with fondness for that 2013-14 title battle and the barnstorming attack of Sterling, Sturridge and Luis Suárez. Chelsea fans, meanwhile, likely feel on the positive side of indifference towards him after two seasons of decent performances amid a whole lot of disruption off the pitch at Stamford Bridge. They won’t be all that sad to say goodbye to him, but there isn’t a great deal of animosity towards him.
Any goodwill from the City and Liverpool fans, will probably evaporate pretty quickly, however, if he joins United this week, as is now looking possible.
He would become the first player in the Premier League era to play for United as well as two others of the traditional ‘big six’. And he’ll have also played for both of their rivals in Liverpool and City, too. It’s not a recipe for universal footballing adoration, particularly in the north west of England.
But yet again, from Sterling’s point of view, this is a move that makes sense. Why would he pass up an opportunity like this?
He gets another move to a giant of the English game, where he’ll continue to play European football and will have the chance to win more trophies (though maybe not the biggest). And he’ll quite rightly believe he can force his way into the team.
Sterling may not have lit up the Premier League in his two years at Chelsea as much as he did at City or Liverpool, but he still did well enough and was arguably one of few positives alongside Cole Palmer in a pretty dismal time at Stamford Bridge.
It’s easy to forget just how big a Premier League legend he is; he is 19th in the all-time top scorer charts and is third among current players behind Mohamed Salah (159) and Jamie Vardy (137), with 123 goals. He moves up to 15th for non-penalty goals (120). It’s also easy to forget he is still only 29 years old, and so has every chance of moving up that list.
He is also 20th for assists in Premier League history, with 63, and 16th for total goal involvements, with a hugely impressive 186. Salah is the only active player ahead of him in that list.
He has plenty more to offer and he showed as much in his time at Chelsea, with 21 Premier League goal involvements in the past two seasons, a tally only Palmer (33) could better of Chelsea players. The fact that Palmer topped that list in one season speaks as much to the failures of their other attackers as it does to his excellence, but Sterling was the best of the rest.
Now, though, he has been told by new Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca that he will “not get any minutes” if he stays, so moving away would mean more chance of playing regularly. And there is an opportunity to grab on the left side of attack at Old Trafford.
Marcus Rashford is first choice on the left but despite everyone willing him to get back to his best and Erik ten Hag giving him plenty of chances, he hasn’t been convincing in that position for a long while. So much so, in fact, that there are more than a few United fans who would prefer to see Alejandro Garnacho play on the left with Amad Diallo playing on the right. With Jadon Sancho set to leave, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the wide attacking positions.
Sterling has always been a fantastic dribbler and ball carrier, and his numbers suggest he would still have plenty to offer to United. Last season, he posted his highest numbers since 2013-14 for progressive carries (moving the ball at least five metres upfield), with 10.6 per 90. He also had his third-best season for the number of times he carried the ball at least five metres and then had a shot (1.0 per 90), and his best-ever season for carries that he ended with a goal (0.18 per 90).
That was in part because he was playing in a Chelsea side that was less functional than the City team he played in before that, so there was more need for him to affect games with individual actions. But that would surely be the case at United, too, and while Sterling is without doubt a team player first, he also has the valuable ability to change games on his own.
It would be big news if Sterling was to move to Old Trafford this summer, and you can see why both United and Sterling himself would decide it is a move worth pursuing.
Just don’t expect everyone to be happy about it.
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