Former Chelsea forward slams Raheem Sterling for reaction to being dropped | Football

Sterling was not in the squad as Chelsea hosted Manchester City on the opening weekend of the Premier League season and the England international was not happy about it.

The 29-year-old issued a statement which read: ‘Raheem Sterling is contracted to Chelsea Football Club for the next three years.

‘He returned to England two weeks early to conduct individual training, and has had a positive pre-season under the new coach, who he has developed a good working relationship with.

‘He is committed, as ever, to delivering at the highest level for Chelsea FC and the fans, who he holds in high regard, and given his inclusion in official club pre-match material this week, our expectation was that Raheem would be involved in this weekend’s fixture in some capacity.

‘He wants ‘clarity’ on the situation for being left out of a squad in the same way several other players are left out. Enzo Maresca has a top-heavy squad at Chelsea that he needs to deal with and he wants to get off to a fast start. If Raheem Sterling was performing really well in pre-season then he’d likely have been in the squad, but he wasn’t so he’s been left out.

‘The best thing Sterling could have done would be keeping his mouth shut, trained hard and try and get his way back into the team, but now it’s become very public. I don’t know whether it’s a threat with regards to saying that he’s got three years left on his deal, but what was the point of that? Is he trying to leave before the window shuts?

‘Chelsea have something like 43 squad players, with 10 new players in this summer. What if every one of those squad players who had been left out came out with a statement like Sterling’s? It’s ridiculous and he should have handled this situation differently. It doesn’t matter if he’s a senior figure in the dressing room or not, he should have just kept his head down and got on with it. What’s football coming to?’

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca is working with an enormous squad after another frantic transfer window at Stamford Bridge.

He clearly wants to trim the numbers of players involved and Sterling’s omission is a clear sign the club want to move him on if possible.

That may not be very easy, though, with Sterling having three years left to run on his contract which is worth around £300,000-a-week.

Maresca’s response to leaving Sterling out was: ‘The only thing I can say is that it was a technical decision and in the next day, we will want to sit and clarify the situation but it is nothing more than that.

‘For all the players, they are Chelsea players. If they are going to be Chelsea players, then we will try to use them but no more than technical decision.

‘I want Raheem Sterling but I want all the 30 players we have. But there is no space for all of them. So for some of them, they have to leave.’