"I don’t think Chelsea will be competitive with Manchester City and Liverpool" - Trevor Sinclair warns 27-year-old against Blues switch this summer
Former Manchester City midfielder Trevor Sinclair has urged Raheem Sterling not to join Chelsea this summer. Sinclair's reasoning is that he does not believe the Blues can challenge for the Premier League title.
Sky Sports have reported that the Blues have made Sterling their top transfer priority this month. City have placed a price-tag of more than £50 million for the winger, despite him only having one year left on his current deal.
Transfer Rumour: According to reports, Raheem Sterling is being prioritised by Chelsea over Ousmane Dembélé in the summer transfer window 
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🚨 Transfer Rumour: According to reports, Raheem Sterling is being prioritised by Chelsea over Ousmane Dembélé in the summer transfer window 👀🏴🔵
#RaheemSterling #OusmaneDembele #ChelseaFC #PremierLeague https://t.co/AxmOkYsIVD
The England international scored 17 times and provided nine assists across 47 appearances for the Cityzens last season. However, he was left out by Pep Guardiola for several of the Premier League champions' biggest encounters.
Sinclair believes Sterling should not make the move to Stamford Bridge, as the pundit told TalkSPORT (as quoted by The Metro):
"I would say no because I don’t think Chelsea will be competitive with Manchester City and Liverpool next season. They’ve lost players, the club is in a transitional phase where they’ve lost a lot of players and they’ve got to do a lot of rebuilding.
"They’ve got a new man at the helm [Boehly] to do that. I think there’s a hell of a lot of work for Chelsea to do this summer. Listen, Raheem is a quality player and a quality operator and Chelsea could compete next season, but the new owner has a big job on his hands."
City fans finding it hard to respect Sterling is so weird. One of our greatest ever attackers but people are more bothered about a miss against Lyon in a quarter final
Former Chelsea midfielder believes Raheem Sterling should make the switch to Stamford Bridge
Andy Townsend disagrees with Sinclair's opinion. The former Republic of Ireland captain believes a change might be good for Sterling after seven seasons at the Etihad Stadium.
The England forward has won four Premier League titles and scored 131 times in 339 appearances for City, but Townsend told TalkSPORT:
"I don’t think it would be a bad thing now for Raheem to have a change. I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all for him, to move to a club like Chelsea.
"It’s always an added bonus to come and play for a London club, living in London and being around London is what top players would prefer of course.
"He’s shown at Manchester City that he can operate at the very top. If Chelsea can get that done at £40million they should bite City’s hand off."
Sterling will look to play valuable minutes for a top side next season ahead of England's World Cup campaign in Qatar later this year.
Most disrespected player in England imo. Over 100 PL goals (still just 27), double figures for goals 9 seasons in a row. Clutch performer for club and country. Scores and creates at a ridiculously high rate but he’s missed a couple open goals so he can’t be good 🙄 twitter.com/mancity/status…