The transfer window closes this weekend, and in an ideal world we would right now be watching Chelsea just put the finishing touches to their finished squad for the season.
But there remains a huge amount of work to be done, with a host of players still needing to be shifted ahead of the new campaign. That includes players like Raheem Sterling, who we didn’t really think was up for sale just a few weeks ago.
Now suddenly the best paid player at the club joins a bunch of unwanted squad players in the out tray, and the sporting directors must be doing all they can to figure out what to do with him.
Ben Jacobs’ latest update on the situation claims that the club will “present options” to Sterling this week, trying to find him an exit he’s happy with. That already assumes there are options to pick from – given Sterling’s wages and indifferent form, we wouldn’t be surprised if that proved tricky.
Obstacles and money the big issues as Chelsea try to shift big name
Jacobs does have some interesting details here though – firstly that the winger is “open” to a move to Manchester United, and it certainly sounds like they’re one of the few “options” that the winger may end up with. There are hardly long lines of teams waiting for their chance to take over his hefty contract.
There’s also the rather dark mention of “internal talks” at Chelsea, and “obstacles” which need to be “overcome” before Sterling talks to new clubs.
The important part for our purposes, however, is that Sterling “hasn’t engaged with any clubs directly” yet, meaning we’re likely still quite far from a deal being done in any case. This frantic week at Cobham is going to be even more frantic now.
