No one will pay Raheem Sterling

Chelsea continue to insist on being the main characters of the transfer window. Today’s fresh new saga is about Raheem Sterling, who was left out of the squad for Chelsea’s 2-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday. Enzo Maresca insists that “it was a technical decision,” but I do not believe him.

Sterling has not lived up to his reported £17m per season wages, but he’s still a good player. He helped Chelsea win games last season, and he looked like their most dangerous attacker throughout preseason.

If Maresca is not lying, he is a horrific evaluator of talent who should not manage a professional football club. This is not a crap player who you do not even want on your bench:

You cannot possibly think this man is worse than Mykhaylo Mudryk on pure footballing merit, please be for real.

Sterling was left out of the squad because Chelsea do not want him to get injured before the deadline and make a potential sale impossible. The problem for them is that a potential sale for them is already impossible if Sterling is unwilling to go to Saudi Arabia or take a pay cut.

Nothing about the statement his representation put out before the game suggests he’s interested in either of those things:

Gianluca Di Marzio reports that Juventus are interested in Sterling, but — surprise! — his wages have thus far made a deal impossible. Juve want him to replace Federico Chiesa, who is asking for less than half of Sterling’s current salary.

If Chelsea are committed to getting rid of Sterling this transfer window, they’re also going to have to commit to eating at least half his wages. They’d also have to receive a fee of £28.5m or more for his transfer to come out as break even on their books. If they ship him out on a loan with an obligation to buy next summer, that number becomes £19m. But again, this comes with the issue that no big European club is going to pay him £17m per season.

There’s no obvious solution to this problem. Whichever potential one you want to cook up, it makes no financial sense for one of the involved parties. The only resolutions I can see are Chelsea accepting a massive financial loss on Sterling, the player becoming extremely desperate to leave, or the most likely one, the club welcoming him back into the team on September 1.

— KM

Some game notes

• Hey, real league matches that count are back. We’ll probably be heavier on transfer rumours than game/team analysis over the next couple weeks until the window closes, but you can expect us to do slowly transition into some talk about actual football with a sprinkling of rumours as we get into the fall.

• The team I enjoyed watching the most this weekend was, surprisingly, Barcelona? I’ve been very negative on their transfer business since Lionel Messi’s departure, but Hansi Flick looks to be getting the most out of his players. The midfield partnership of 20-year-old Marc Casado and 17-year-old debutant Marc Bernal exceeded expectations. Raphinha’s final pass/shot was lacking as it often is, but he looked quite useful as a runner around Robert Lewandowski. Their patterns of play in attack looked crispy, and they ended on 3.23 xG (including a penalty) in a 2-1 win away to Valencia.

• Real Madrid, meanwhile, didn’t look their best in a 1-1 draw with Mallorca. I think Madrid are the best team in the world and should beat Barca to the title pretty convincingly, but if the club takes a couple months to adjust to Kylian Mbappe and Barca gets out to a little lead, La Liga might be very fun.

• Pretty standard results in the Prem. We knew City were better than Chelsea. Arsenal, Liverpool, and Man United all looked not quite at their best but still managed clean sheet victories against weaker sides. Next week’s fixtures look WAY spicier.

• Newsletter favorite Yankuba Minteh managed 3 key passes for 0.78 xA and one actual assist for Brighton before he had to come off after 45 minutes with a concussion. Also 0.25 dribble and carry OBV, good for 2nd among all players in the game and 1st on a per-90 basis. I’m Mintehpilled.

• Napoli got just about doubled up on xG (0.96 to 1.85) in a 3-0 loss to Hellas Verona. Antonio Conte is uhhhhh taking it well.

News and rumours

• I mentioned liking Barcelona’s performance this weekend, but one player who didn’t look great was Ferran Torres. They’d like to sell him, and Newcastle are reportedly interested. The problem is that Torres is not particularly interested in leaving sunny Barcelona for cold and rainy Newcastle, and will take some convincing. Unlucky.

• In other Newcastle news, they’ve had another bid rejected for Marc Guehi, but Crystal Palace are behaving like they’re willing to sell. They’re progressing in negotiations for Wolfsburg center back Maxence Lacroix, who previously played for Oliver Glasner. He’s going to cost €20m, and I don’t love the move. Looks quite average at everything.

• Newcastle are also being linked to Joe Gomez and Trevoh Chalobah as alternatives, and both would cost about half of what Guehi does. They come with some significant risks, to say the least.

• Arsenal are “getting closer” to Mikel Merino. Again. Like they have for a month. This time it’s actually closer. No, really. Progress is being made. They’re having meetings about meetings.

• Nottingham Forest seem very willing to splash a bunch of cash on a center forward, and they’re being linked to two different ones right now — Arsenal’s Eddie Nketiah and Feyenoord’s Santiago Gimenez. They’d both cost about £25m. I’d much rather roll the dice on the guy who’s scored 40 goals in 64 league games than accept a guy who’s reliably mid.

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