Thomas Tuchel has spoken publicly in support of Raheem Sterling, saying he feels for the forward as his career and personal life continue to unravel. Sterling pleaded guilty to dangerous driving charges last month and remains without a club after failing to secure a move since then.<\/p>\n
The case has already drawn significant attention. In May, Sterling crashed his Lamborghini into a metal gate after an incident on the M25 and M3. At the scene, police found six nitrous oxide canisters, and bodycam footage released in September showed him trying to move them onto the back seat after he admitted the charges.<\/p>\n
Tuchel, who previously asked Todd Boehly to prioritise Sterling\u2019s arrival at Stamford Bridge in 2022, believes the winger\u2019s decline began after leaving Man City. Sterling had established himself as a major Premier League figure after breaking through at Liverpool and moving to the Cityzens in a $75 million deal in 2014. Under Pep Guardiola, he produced five straight double-digit Premier League goal returns between 2017-18 and 2021-22.<\/p>\n
“I have a lot of sympathy for him, and I feel that he has struggled ever since he left Man City and he was at the peak of his career,” Tuchel told reporters on Friday.<\/p>\n
Sterling scored 13 goals in his final season at the Etihad before joining Chelsea in 2022. He managed 24 Premier League goal contributions across his first two seasons in west London, but his position changed sharply after that. A loan move to Arsenal did not revive him, and he later found himself outside Enzo Maresca\u2019s plans, spending much of his time with the Italian\u2019s \u201cbomb squad\u201d before leaving the club earlier this year.<\/p>\n
His stint at Feyenoord brought more frustration, with his own supporters mocking and jeering him. Then came the Lamborghini incident.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s sad to see that someone struggles because he was a devoted father to his children and he was a family guy, a nice guy to be around,\u201d Tuchel added.<\/p>\n
Tuchel still believes Sterling can recover from what he called a \u201cdownward spiral\u201d, though the evidence of the last few seasons suggests a long way back for a player who once looked destined for a far brighter end to his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tuchel has backed Sterling amid legal trouble, club uncertainty and a sharp fall from his peak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,1056],"tags":[59,180,182],"class_list":["post-21287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-man-city","tag-featured","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}