Analysis: Raheem Sterling’s drop-off in goals, assists and vigour symbolises Chelsea’s woes

Sterling had become the first signing of the Todd Boehly era – the first of about 137, I lose count – and seemed a smart piece of business by ambitious new owners.

“You won the Champions League and are now looking to challenge for the Premier League,” Sterling said of the new era. He talked glowingly of working for a top manager, a proven winner in Thomas Tuchel.

“It made a lot of sense,” Sterling said of returning to the city of his childhood. Coming from a 27-year-old forward still in his prime despite no longer being certain of his place at Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, did anyone disagree?

It did make a lot of sense so it was startling, and rather sad, to see Sterling on Tuesday night with a thousand-yard stare as the final whistle blew at the end of Chelsea’s European campaign, and effectively their season. Like many at Stamford Bridge, he looked lost.

What was he thinking? Was he wondering what became of the optimism? What became of Tuchel, of competing for big prizes, of his England place, of the jewellery he lost in a mid-season burglary? What became of those goals? Form and confidence? Hope? A plan? Any plan?

Sympathy may be limited for a footballer who signed as one of Chelsea’s highest earners on wages understood to be around pounds 300,000 a week but, for all the ridicule of Boehly’s extravagant incontinence in the transfer market and his 153-or-so signings, I am not sure there is a more potent symbol of all that has gone wrong at Stamford Bridge in less than ten months than that befuddled look on the face of the first, arguably most uncontroversial, recruit.

Some of those 179 transfers were always going to be either risky, ill-fitting or need time to settle but Sterling seemingly came with a guarantee.

This was a footballer whose qualities and style were established; a senior player around his peak; a four-time Premier League champion; a recent FWA Footballer of the Year.

Even if he had played less at City in his final season, Sterling still had shown enough to think that a promise to “keep banging in the goals” was one he could keep.

To be the third top scorer under Guardiola after Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero is no small feat.

We can measure the drop-off in countless ways but goals and assists have plummeted from an average of 32 in his last five seasons at City to ten at Chelsea; total shots down from 2.3 per game to 1.15; dribble success rate from around 50 per cent to 33.

Some Chelsea fans would add a drop-off in vigour too – a player who could be a leader but whose form and confidence has seemingly been buried amid the dysfunction at Stamford Bridge. Given his record of proving critics wrong for England and coping with pressure, it makes the slump even more troubling.

Sterling is Chelsea’s second-highest scorer this season, behind Kai Havertz, but given that his total is seven (and they are the only two players with more than three goals in the campaign), it is hardly much of a consolation.

In short, it has been a wretched time and if Sterling cannot work then it is hardly a surprise that no one can – a player in his prime ensnared in a shambles that suggests that Boehly should be apologising for the embarrassment as much as blaming coaches and players for it.

Sterling has had as many managers in one season as in the first decade of his life as a professional footballer – and even more positions on the pitch.

From a false nine in Tuchel’s 3-4-3 to a striker in 4-4-2, to a wing-back and wide forward under Graham Potter to a substitute under Frank Lampard even in a game when Chelsea had to try to pull off the miracle recovery of coming back from two goals down against Real Madrid.

All of this under owners who stand on the side of the training pitches as if they have something to offer but only spread instability and doubt; piling the responsibility for goals onto those who expect to be setting them up, which is a bit like a restaurant owner bollocking the waiters for poor food while forgetting that they never actually invested in a decent chef. That Sterling has lost his way is not in dispute and it would be interesting to know what Gareth Southgate thought as he watched on at Stamford Bridge in midweek given that he has been one of the player’s most loyal supporters. Even the England manager has his limits.

Almost forgotten amid the drama of the burglary at Sterling house’s during the World Cup in Qatar, and his return home amid confusion as to whether armed invaders had entered the home (Surrey police suggested otherwise), was that he had lost his England place.

Sterling started the tournament but had been rested against Wales and would not have faced Senegal, with Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden preferred, even if he had not returned home. Sterling was brought off the bench in the quarter-final defeat against France but, even on his best form, would struggle to start with Jack Grealish maturing at City, Marcus Rashford revitalised and Saka an automatic choice.

The competition as a wide forward is stronger than ever.

He missed the most recent international camp but could hardly have expected to start on form, with a couple of injuries also hampering him since the World Cup. He needs to find his way back but is now left wondering what the Chelsea team, squad and coach will look like next season, and whether there will be any order to the chaos.

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At 28, there is plenty of time to turn things around. Under shrewd management, Sterling can still deliver what he was signed for but perhaps nothing speaks of Chelsea’s confusion more than his difficult campaign, his place on the bench in midweek and that look at the final whistle.

What was he thinking? Maybe wistfully about the interview he gave to the club’s website last summer.

“I just felt it is a place where I can really come into my own. I just think it’s the perfect platform for me,” he said. The worst thing about Chelsea might not be the bad signings – it is that they cannot even make the sensible ones work.

Originally published as Analysis: Raheem Sterling’s drop-off in goals, assists and vigour symbolises Chelsea’s woes