Raheem Sterling appears to be holding out for a permanent move away from Chelsea, according to a report in The Times. The former Manchester City and Liverpool forward is said to have turned down a winter loan to West Ham United in “the hopes” of securing a different route out of Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n
Enzo Maresca, referred to in the report as Sterling\u2019s chief jailor, has since left Stamford Bridge, and Sterling now looks set to push for fresh permanent options. He still has 18 months remaining on a lucrative Chelsea contract and would “prefer” to remain in London, the report adds.<\/p>\n
With Crystal Palace pursuing Brennan Johnson, Fulham have been identified as Sterling\u2019s most likely suitors. It remains uncertain whether Fulham would have the funds to complete a transfer for a position they reinforced in the summer. The article notes that “Kevin was acquired from Shakhtar Donetsk for a club-record \u20ac40 million (\u00a334.9 million, $46.9 million) to counteract Willian\u2019s departure. The 22-year-old is still being eased into the rigours of Premier League football and boasts just six top-flight starts this season. That is, of course, six more than Sterling, who hasn\u2019t even been training with Chelsea\u2019s first team during these long months of isolation.”<\/p>\n
The Times report adds that Sterling has not ruled out a move abroad; Napoli and Bayern Munich were thought to have shown interest last summer. Sterling\u2019s rejection of West Ham could indirectly clear the way for Fulham, and the Hammers are expected to redirect their attention after being jilted by “a player with 123 Premier League goals to his name.”<\/p>\n
West Ham are reported to be considering alternatives, with Adama Traore mentioned as a potential target. The Barcelona academy graduate has struggled for minutes, registering just one Premier League start this campaign and failing to replicate the form he enjoyed alongside Ra\u00fal Jim\u00e9nez at Wolves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sterling has turned down West Ham and is reportedly hoping for a permanent move to Fulham in London.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5632,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,713,1163],"tags":[983,1304,986],"class_list":["post-5633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-fulham","category-transfers","tag-agents","tag-benching","tag-contract-standoff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5633","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=5633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}