Raheem Sterling, one of the English Premier League (EPL) superstars, was not chosen by Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca.
Chelsea lost 0-2 to Manchester City in the opening match of the first round of the 2024-2025 English Premier League (EPL) at Stamford Bridge in London, England, at 0:30 a.m. on the 19th (Korea time).
Sterling's name could not be found among Chelsea's pre-match list of 20. Not because Sterling is in bad shape. Sterling has played Chelsea's pre-season very normally. Sterling also played against Inter Milan just a week ago.
However, he was not chosen by Maresca in the EPL opening match against Manchester City. Sterling is currently the highest-paid superstar with Romelo Lukaku at Chelsea. It is receiving 325 million euros (about 570 million won) per week alone. In terms of annual salary, it is a huge amount of 16.9 million pounds (about 29.6 billion won).
Even if it is expanded to the entire league, Kevin De Bruyne, Elling Holan (Manchester City), Casemiro (Manchester United), and Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) are the only players who have been treated better than Sterling. Chelsea promised a key treatment when they brought Sterling from Manchester City, so they are treating him according to his position.
Of course, Sterling did not perform at the top of the league after leaving Manchester City and joining Chelsea, but it was hard to predict that Sterling would not be appointed by Chelsea in the upcoming season. Sterling took action immediately after being removed from the list of matches.
Sterling said in a statement that "Sterling returned to England two weeks early to conduct individual training sessions and had a positive pre-season under the new manager. I have developed a good cooperative relationship with Maresca. Considering that Sterling was included in the official club game data this week, it was expected that Sterling would participate in the match against Manchester City. We have always had positive confidence in Sterling's future at Chelsea, so we expect things to be clear," he said, turning coach Maresca and pressing him.
First of all, Maresca said of Sterling's exclusion "It's just a tactical decision. There is nothing more to say. The director is paid to make a decision. Sometimes players may not like the decisionput forth the position that "
Sterling has also been linked with Juventus in this summer's transfer window. If Maresca plans to neglect Sterling, Sterling is expected to push for a transfer immediately. It is consequential, but it is true that coach Maresca excluded Sterling from the match against Manchester City, which does not seem like the right choice. Sterling is also criticized for being hasty for officially responding that he was excluded from the game list from the opening game.
rlaeotlr2024@sportschosun.com
