Chelsea can supercharge Sterling with £103m star who’s “better than Haaland”

The 25-year-old has the potential to make the Englishman the Premier League’s assist king.

Chelsea have had another miserable season this year, with new manager Mauricio Pochettino overseeing a disastrous campaign that has them tenth in the Premier League, miles away from Champions League qualification, and 1-0 down heading into the second leg of their League Cup semi-final.

Aside from Cole Palmer, the summer arrivals have been a huge letdown, with former Villarreal striker Nicolas Jackson being possibly the most uninspiring of all.

The Senegalese forward has been horribly wasteful in front of goal, which hasn’t helped the side’s creative players like Raheem Sterling, though the latest figure linked with a move to Stamford Bridge with his precision finishing: Napoli’s Victor Osimhen.

Chelsea are looking for a new striker in 2024, according to the Daily Mail, and they have a’strong interest’ in Napoli’s free-scoring number nine, Osimhen.

The bad news for the Blues is that if they want to recruit the Nigerian this year, they will have to pay a lot of money, as the English tabloid has reported that he has a £103 million release clause in his contract.

The good news is that, according to the source, the former LOSC Lille striker is ‘open to joining the Blues,’ which is crucial to know before beginning any negotiations.

While it will be an expensive transaction for Todd Boehly and company to thrash out, the team’s need for an out-and-out striker makes it one they must accomplish – and it should boost Sterling’s creative figures.

The former Manchester City ace is an incredibly experienced professional with a genuinely impressive back-catalogue of performances, but his time at Stamford Bridge has been – to put it mildly – underwhelming, with only 16 goals in 61 games, albeit with ten assists.

The 26-year-old would become the team’s first name.He hasn’t been horrible by any means, but he hasn’t been as effective as Chelsea fans might have hoped he would be, and while some of that is due to him, the mediocre players surrounding him are certainly not helping.

For example, Jackson has been outrageously wasteful in the league this season, and while his seven goals may appear impressive on the surface (three of which came against a nine-man Tottenham Hotspur side, mind you), the fact that he has an expected goals figure of 10.6 demonstrates that he is about as far from a natural finisher as you’ll find in the top flight.

In comparison, Osimhen has scored seven league goals from an expected goals figure of just 6.7, proving that he is scoring more goals than you would expect from the type of chances he is getting and making Italian agent Andrea D’Amico’s claim that he is “even better than Haaland” a little easier to understand.

So, if Sterling were to play alongside the Nigerian “hitman,” as football talent scout Jacek Kulig dubbed him, he could reasonably expect his creative numbers to skyrocket from their current – already fairly reasonable – level, because the Napoli icon would not only finish the great chances he was given, but he would also be able to turn the half-chances into goals, increasing the Englishman’s number of assists.

At the end of the day, while this would be an extremely expensive deal to complete and Jackson could eventually come good, Chelsea’s current situation necessitates such a transfer, and while the fans would understandably be thrilled with Osimhen’s arrival, Sterling would surely be just as thrilled.