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Hello! New season, same old Chelsea… and Man City… and Salah.
⛔ Chelsea’s Sterling stand-off
🇺🇸 Why the wait with Pochettino?
🤐 Liverpool’s transfer secrets
👕 Best/worst EPL away kits
Chelsea Confusion: Sterling wants ‘clarity’ after omission from City defeat
There was a sense of inevitability in the way Premier League champions Manchester City opened the new campaign with a 2-0 win over Chelsea.
Erling Haaland’s match stats? Ninety minutes, one goal, three completed passes. “I can just stand there and watch,” the striker said at full time (though the touches for his goal, above, were pretty nifty).
The pre and post-match discussions, however, focused on a player who was nowhere near the pitch. Raheem Sterling was the marquee signing of Chelsea’s new era in the summer of 2022, but he wasn’t included in Enzo Maresca’s squad as the forward’s former side came to town on Sunday.
Sterling’s camp had given a statement on his future in response to a Daily Mail story last week as reports of his omission circulated. This was published as soon as the team news was released, with his camp stating they “looked forward to gaining clarity on the situation”. While Stamford Bridge officials were shocked by the move, sources insist the club is fully behind the head coach.
Maresca has a particular way he demands his team plays. Full-backs invert into midfield and don’t bomb forward, placing an emphasis on the end product of wingers. Pedro Neto was signed after some blunt attacking displays in pre-season, leaving Sterling, 30, out of favour in Maresca’s bloated squad.
This could rumble on.
What about other players?
(Angel Martinez/Justin Setterfield via Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb)
A reminder, as if you needed it, that Chelsea have spent £1.2billion ($1.5bn) since the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium bought the club in 2022. In an attempt to balance the outgoings, Sterling joins a group of players seemingly being gently nudged towards the exit.
Ben Chilwell doesn’t fit Maresca’s system and has been told he can leave, while Conor Gallagher remains in limbo as his Atletico Madrid move stalls. The midfielder has spent the past week taking private jets between Madrid and London and is now training ‘slightly apart’ from the rest of Maresca’s group. Chelsea still want him to join the Spanish side or agree their contract offer.
But — as we explain in our feature on his future — the move is part of a tangled web of transfers involving Atletico’s Samu Omorodion, Julian Alvarez — who has joined Diego Simeone’s side from City — and Valencia midfielder Javi Guerra.
What did Maresca say?
The head coach called Sterling’s absence a “technical decision”, before adding some sincerely luke-warm words of support: “I want Raheem Sterling,” he began, “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.”
Maresca was also questioned over his decision to hand Enzo Fernandez the captaincy a month after he posted a video of himself and several of his Argentina team-mates singing a racist song about the France national team.
“Enzo made a mistake, he recognised the mistake and it’s finished,” Maresca said. “It’s nothing important.”
News Round-Up
🎙️ Our Daily Football Briefing podcast rounds up all the weekend action in less than 10 minutes.
Whistle-Stop Tour: Eze stunner disallowed early, Mosquera treads fine line
Spare a thought for Eberechi Eze — and many angry fantasy football managers — after the Crystal Palace winger saw a stunning goal (above) disallowed following a minor infringement in the box. The whistle had been blown before his shot was taken, so VAR couldn’t intervene. Frustrating for Palace, too — they lost 2-1 to Brentford.
Over in north London, Wolverhampton Wanderers defender Yerson Mosquera was in the thick of the action against Arsenal at the Emirates, but perhaps not in the way head coach Gary O’Neil had hoped. He avoided a red card after appearing to grab Kai Havertz around the throat and sparked a reaction from Gabriel Jesus after placing his hand on the Arsenal forward’s backside (both below). Mosquera went unpunished, Jesus went into the book.
(Getty Images/Sky Sports)
Liverpool’s data deals
Same old Manchester City, sure, but Mohamed Salah also shows no signs of slowing down with his goal and assist during Liverpool’s 2-0 win over promoted Ipswich Town on Saturday. But how did the club end up signing such a talented player with relative ease?
Well, I’m glad you asked. Ian Graham has a PhD in biological physics from the University of Cambridge and helped assemble the squad that ended Liverpool’s 30-year wait for an English top flight title.
Graham, Liverpool’s former director of research, spearheaded a data-driven recruitment strategy that saw reasonably priced signings blossom into world beaters, headlined by the £37million addition of Salah.
The forward had flopped at Chelsea three years earlier, but Graham — who started his own analytics company last year — explains why Liverpool continued to pursue him, because he ticked all the “complicated data” boxes in relation to increasing a team’s chances of scoring a goal.
“We couldn’t believe that we were able to sign him,” Graham told The Athletic. “Why aren’t Manchester City and Arsenal putting bids in for this player? We didn’t understand it.
“Signing Mo because he had failed at Chelsea was doing something different, but we didn’t care about looking stupid. That was the difference between us and a lot of clubs at that time.”
Pochettino latest: Why is USMNT deal taking so long?
A verbal agreement is in place for Mauricio Pochettino to take the USMNT’s head coach role, but it’s the admin that’s getting in the way.
Pochettino has a severance package with Chelsea — yes, them again — after his departure 12 months into a two-year contract. The complication boils down to the 52-year-old ensuring he is not out of pocket by taking the USMNT job, which pays less than a lucrative club role.
One possible solution is Chelsea paying the difference between what U.S. Soccer is offering Pochettino and what the club would have paid him had he stayed out of work.
If the Argentine is appointed, the USMNT’s goalkeeping situation will be a priority. The U.S. once boasted a real talent pipeline of goalkeepers, but Cardiff City’s Ethan Horvath did not follow in their footsteps during Saturday’s 5-0 loss to Burnley in the Championship.
We’ve broken down the mistake here for those who can bear to watch. But Tim Howard, Brad Friedel, Kasey Keller, you should definitely look away now…
Quiz answer
Brighton’s James Milner has now appeared in a record-breaking 23rd Premier League season after starting for Brighton in their 3-0 win over Everton on Saturday.
On Friday, we asked you to name the 10 other players to feature in 19 or more seasons. As promised, here they are:
Ryan Giggs (22 seasons), Gareth Barry (21), Frank Lampard (20), Rio Ferdinand (20), Jermain Defoe (19), Sol Campbell (19), Shay Given (19), John Terry (19), Phil Neville (19), Paul Scholes (19).
Around TAFC: Premier League away kits ranked, Napoli ‘melt like snow’
(Getty Images; design: Dan Goldfarb/Eamonn Dalton)
Catch A Match (Times ET/UK)
(Selected games)
Premier League: Leicester City vs Tottenham, 3pm/8pm — USA Network, Fubo/Sky Sports.
Serie A: Lecce vs Atalanta, 12.30pm/5.30pm — Paramount+, CBS Sports/OneFootball; Juventus vs Como 1907, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+, CBS Sports/OneFootball.
La Liga: Real Valladolid vs Espanyol, 6pm/11pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports 1; Villarreal vs Atletico Madrid, 3.30pm/8.30pm — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports 1.
(Top photo: Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images)
