Romano explains the facts which put controversial statement from Chelsea star in new light | OneFootball

Chelsea lost their opening game of the Premier League season 2-0 to Manchester City, but that really wasn’t the story at Stamford Bridge.

The defeat was expected – what really made headlines (and still is today) is the situation surrounding winger Raheem Sterling.) The sheer number of first team players on the books meant that there was always going to be a “musical chairs situation,” and in the end it was Sterling who ended up with no seat on the bench.

He was left out of the squad, and immediately responded with a statement. Today, transfer insider Fabrizio Romano has followed up with more information about the situation.

“Chelsea fully support Maresca’s technical decision on Raheem Sterling not being part of the squad vs Man City,” Romano wrote.

“It was communicated on Friday and the club is 100% supportive with Maresca, fully behind him.”

How Sterling’s statement got out

One thing that struck us was how fast Sterling’s “camp” got their statement out. It was quite long, yet released just minutes after the lineup came out. According to Romano, there’s an explanation for that. Sterling knew from Friday that he was not going to be in the squad, and had clearly been waiting for the news to come out before he responded.

This puts rather a new slant on the whole statement – it was premeditated rather than a spurt of frustration. Many pundits on duty during the game complained of Sterling taking this action – if you’re out of the squad because of a manager’s decision you’ve just got to suck it up.

But it’s those upstairs at Chelsea who have created this culture of exclusion, freeze outs and bomb squads. If this was a one off, it feels like Sterling wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Instead, his response can be seen as addressing the whole summer’s aggressive treatment of contracted players, even if in his case there’s not been anything particularly unfair about it.