On Thursday morning, it was somewhat symbolic that the announcement of Mikel Arteta’s new contract at Arsenal was followed so closely by the news of Manchester City’s trial date. Such are the tides of football: one club finds itself surfing on a big wave while another nervously watches the ever-shrinking circles of a dorsal fin.
For now, this is a promising time for Arsenal, whose long-term prospects are dimmed only slightly by a personnel crisis in the immediate future. With Declan Rice out for Sunday’s north London derby and Martin Odegaard out for a few more weeks, this has the potential to be a tricky time for Arteta. An ebb and flow, perhaps.
But there is a real buzz at Arsenal about their place in the world. There is excitement about their trajectory and how circumstances elsewhere might soon help them, which is combined with an increasingly firm sense that they have the right man in charge of the right men. And one of those men is more interesting than most, of course.
Ebbs and flows? Raheem Sterling has seen some.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta will be looking to get the best out of loan signing Raheem Sterling
Chelsea are paying around £7.5m in wages for Sterling to play for a rival.
I’ve been chatting about him to people at the club and around this week. We won’t know until about an hour before kick-off whether he’ll play against Tottenham, but bad luck could play in his favour. It’s quite possible that it could mean a starting place for a man who desperately needs a fresh start.
Naturally, every new signing is a ray of hope until it isn’t. But Arsenal are increasingly excited, even thrilled, by what they have seen so far from Sterling: sharp in training, great fitness, a constant source of good touches for video packages. Much has been made of a man who has been discreet in his behaviour on the spot: friendly but fairly calm.
For the most part, that has been his way, contrary to some misconceptions over the years. Those who know him well speak of someone who can be moody at times and who has succumbed to questionable advice from others, but they say that at his core he is a good guy and a good professional. That has also been the dominant observation at London Colney since he arrived after dark on the final day of play.
The rest of the season will tell us how this move plays out. And also how it will reflect on Chelsea’s addled minds, who are paying around £7.5m in wages for Sterling to play for a rival. This is a special kind of madness. Arsenal’s risk exposure is minimal by comparison: they are contributing less than half of his £325,000-a-week wages and have not paid a penny in loan fees.
Sterling was not a target they were chasing, but when he was presented as an option on those terms, Arteta only saw the upside. By his own account, the decision took all of 10 seconds to make.
He could prove to be a complete flop or he could be the bargain of the summer, but the fact that both options are on the table speaks volumes about the extent of Sterling’s decline and his latent talents.
Arsenal have certainly been seduced by a player in his prime, who was at his best in 2021 and who, at his best, could pierce defences from either flank, as a number 10 and play as a striker.
The worrying thing is that he has not looked like this for long, or on any sustained basis since leaving Manchester City for Chelsea 24 months ago. His career has reeked of inertia. Has there been any top English international this century who has crashed harder without the burden of significant injuries? It is hard to think of one.
Sterling’s move could end up resembling that of Kai Havertz, who eventually made his mark at Arsenal.
Sterling’s loan move to Arsenal represents his last chance at a big club
The test for Sterling is to bounce back, because this loan away from the asylum of Chelsea is a gift and has the clear appearance of a final chance. He will turn 30 in December and will most likely be on his fourth and final stop on his tour of big clubs. If he allows this opportunity to go the way of his time at Chelsea, the next rescue committee will not be so pretty.
I hope this adventure ends up being like Kai Havertz. He was excellent in the second half of last season and has maintained his form at the start of this campaign: it is proof that there is life after failure at Chelsea.
It is also a testament to Arteta’s healing hands, his ability to make good players very good, or very good, great. His coaching has been instrumental in honing a player whose versatility seemed to work against him, and he has regained his confidence layer by layer. It is precisely what Sterling needs.
After conflicting messages from five managers at Stamford Bridge, learning a single system to change direction with every new breeze, playing roles ranging from left-back to right-winger and being the author of disgruntled pre-match statements, he is back with a manager he knows. A manager he trusts. A manager who trusts him.
Arteta’s impact on Sterling at City has been documented elsewhere this week. It was the Spaniard, in his previous life as Pep Guardiola’s assistant, who turned an unreliable finisher into one of the team’s most prolific goalscorers. He gave him time in extra sessions when others had left the field, explained to him where he should be in the box and when, and the results were tremendous.
Sterling may never have been as good as he was made out to be, but he was once a valuable player, making more than 30 league appearances in six consecutive seasons in Guardiola’s attack. The fact that he was able to get the best out of himself through those extracurricular sessions with Arteta is reason to think his departure could trigger another investigation at Chelsea.
I have argued before in this space that managers who fail at Chelsea deserve a kind of carte blanche. The club is currently a hotbed of failure, but I would not be so generous to players like Sterling, who had plenty of minutes to shine at Stamford Bridge. He simply did not take advantage of the opportunity.
And yet it is overwhelmingly tempting to agree with Arteta’s assessment of the most exciting signing of the summer. “After 10 seconds, I knew we needed him here,” Arteta said on Friday. “You can feel it as soon as you walk through the door: we are better with him. He is going to make us better.”
Arteta has often shown a tendency towards exaggeration, but those words suggest he is well aware that blowing smoke at Sterling could be the first step on the road to restoration.
Of course, smoke and hot air are not so different and it is up to Sterling to prove he is still worth the fuss. If he does, he will build on a mountain of existing evidence by demonstrating the wisdom of one London club and the stupidity of another.
Liverpool must not lose Trent Alexander-Arnold
It is very important for Liverpool to retain Trent Alexander-Arnold
On a night that was Harry Kane’s, it was Trent Alexander-Arnold who produced the most special moment during England’s win over Finland this week. Sadly, the TV replays focused more on Eberechi Eze missing the shot than on Alexander-Arnold’s curling, diving pass from the outside of his boot, which deflected between two centre-backs and landed right in his path from 40 yards out. Genius can be displayed in many ways and he moved the ball like Ronnie O’Sullivan.
It would be a shame if Liverpool lost Mo Salah or Virgil van Dijk to expiring contracts this summer, but Alexander-Arnold is the player they most need to keep.
Cristiano Ronaldo’s criticism of Erik ten Hag becomes popular
Cristiano Ronaldo’s criticism of Erik ten Hag was popular among Manchester United fans
Cristiano Ronaldo hit the nail on the head with Manchester United fans when he criticised Erik ten Hag when he admitted that the club is a long way from competing for the Premier League and Champions League titles. Another question is whether it was wise for Ronaldo in 2024 to invite a conversation about the line between confidence and illusion.