There is a song that will not be heard at the Etihad Stadium this season; not unless a corner of Chelsea supporters chorus it, anyway. “Raheem Sterling, he’s top of the league,” was part of the soundtrack of Manchester City’s surge to four Premier League titles in five seasons. And if it was scarcely the wittiest of chants, it felt one of the more meaningful. It was an assertion of superiority while highlighting one of the reasons for it.
Sterling’s move to Chelsea feels a coup in several respects. At a price of £45m, less than half the amount they paid for Romelu Lukaku last summer and less than Fernando Torres cost 11 years ago, he looks a relative bargain for a club whose record signings, from Andriy Shevchenko to Kepa Arrizabalaga, can go wrong. It is a rare case, certainly since the early days of Roman Abramovich’s ownership, of raiding a major domestic rival. It raises the prospect that, like N’Golo Kante before him, Sterling could win successive Premier Leagues with different clubs, the second in Chelsea blue.
Yet, while Chelsea will acquire Sterling for around the sum City paid in 2016, this is about more than just securing value for money at the start of Todd Boehly’s regime. He may represent the first true Thomas Tuchel signing, giving an indication of the manager’s greater say in recruitment. If Lukaku was supposed to be Tuchel’s flagship buy, an uneasy relationship cast doubt on the German’s role in his arrival the increasingly cliched description of the Belgian last summer – the final piece in the jigsaw – looks more applicable to Sterling; at least as far as the forward line is concerned.
