Raheem Sterling and Christian Pulisic with Edouard Mendy during their time at Chelsea. (Photo by Clive Mason/Getty Images)
Chelsea star Raheem Sterling signed from Manchester City last summer amidst a tumultuous time at the west London club.
We had recently come under the new ownership of Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital. Thomas Tuchel was swiftly fired in September and the management took a risk by appointing Graham Potter out of nowhere.
Tuchel hadn’t done anything wrong per se, and that is what made the Potter signing so difficult. The Englishman was always under pressure to perform so well that the fans would forget Tuchel was ever at the club.
Instead, every game we lost or didn’t win served as an opportunity for some fans to wonder if the club would have been better off with Tuchel in charge. Potter was sacked later in the season with Bruno Saltor taking charge of one game.
To this day, that 0-0 league draw against Liverpool earlier this year is the only game he has ever managed. Frank Lampard returned in an interim capacity until the end of the season but he could not stop the rot.
After a series of unpredictable and risky calls, Chelsea had the sense to appoint Mauricio Pochettino as their new coach — a manager known for getting the best out of young players and making his team play exciting attacking football.
For Sterling (28), this also served as a clean slate to find an identity in the team. In a recent presser, he revealed his first reaction to the news of the former Tottenham Hotspur and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) manager taking over the club (h/t Football.London):
“When I first heard that he was going to be the manager I think it was an exciting one because of the many years I have played against his teams and I know how difficult it is to play against his teams.
“They are always resilient. They are always tough to play against. I knew he would be a coach who would bring what we needed. To have someone like him to lead us in certain difficult situations last season would have been good. So [when I heard he was going to be appointed] I was really optimistic of what he would bring
Sterling would know ‘Poch’ well from the latter’s time at Southampton and Spurs. At those clubs, he nurtured Son Heung-min and Sadio Mane into becoming two of the best wingers in the world.
Sterling has been in those debates as well. But he needs to find his best form again. And that starts with finding his best position on the pitch. Hopefully, the Argentine tactician is able to get the best out of the former Liverpool forward and play him regularly down the flanks rather than relying on him as a centre-forward.
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