Chelsea could have signed Sterling 2.0 in £45m Cole Palmer upgrade (2024)

Despite unleashing a war chest of funds this summer, Chelsea’s downward spiral since Roman Abramovich’s exit has continued.

The Blues’ only victory of this campaign came against Luton Town, tasting a 3-1 defeat against West Ham and most recently, a 1-0 loss at the hands of Nottingham Forest as Anthony Elanga’s second-half winner sent shock waves around Stamford Bridge.

These disappointing results are hard to fathom considering Chelsea have now spent more than £1 billion since Todd Boehly took over, paying the price for their large turnover of players with little planning or forward direction.

The latest of those signings to arrive through the door was Manchester City’s Cole Palmer, whose reported £42.5m move on deadline day saw their spending eclipse the £1bn mark as the England U21 starlet became their twelfth signing of this window.

While Chelsea were happy to have landed one of England’s most sought-after young talents, he wasn’t the only Premier League player the club could have signed late on in the window.

Who did Chelsea want to sign this summer?

According to the Daily Mail, Chelsea considered a move for Manchester United’s £45m-valued star Jadon Sancho before securing the services of Palmer.

The 23-year-old’s future has been up in the air this summer after struggling to hold onto a regular starting spot at Old Trafford.

Speculation regarding his future has only been heightened in recent days after Sancho released a statement on social media, snapping back in response to the comments Erik ten Hag made about him underperforming in training.

With his current attitude and mindset in question, Chelsea were put off signing the former Borussia Dortmund man and instead went for Palmer.

How does Cole Palmer compare to Jadon Sancho?

Deployed on either flank and finding joy in isolating defenders before showcasing their strengths in the final third, Palmer and Sancho are both quite similar in their respective play styles, thriving in one-on-one situations against their opposing full-backs.

When completing the signing of Sancho in 2021, Manchester United thought the Englishman would offer them an abundance of the above attributes and a deadly final product, but the Englishman hasn’t reached anywhere near his best.

Having arrived from Dortmund after registering an eye-watering 114 goal contributions in 137 appearances, Sancho’s exploits in the last two years have been a shadow of those world-class returns, since scoring 12 goals in 82 appearances at Old Trafford.

In spite of that, his experience and previous performances dictate he could well still be a better option than Palmer, who boasts just six senior goals and two assists to date.

With his mind clearly being far from settled in Manchester, Sancho needs a fresh start elsewhere and despite underwhelming across the last 12 months, his attacking metrics suggest he would be an upgrade on Palmer while rivalling the in-form Raheem Sterling, a player whom United’s out of favour winger is similar to, as per FBref.

How does Sancho compare to Raheem Sterling?

Described as a “phenomenon” by renowned scout Jacek Kulig, the Red Devils winger excels when comparing his dribbling and ball-carrying stats against Sterling, who is known for his electricity when accelerating and explosive dribbling.

Across the past year, Sancho has recorded 6.4 touches in the attacking penalty box, 4.98 shot-creating actions, 5.08 progressive carries and 2.88 carries into the penalty area per 90, via FBref.

Despite returning to his scintillating best so far this season having chalked up two goals and one assist in the Premier League, the 28-year-old Sterling actually falls behind the £350k per-week star for touches in the attacking penalty box (6.3), progressive carries (4.12), shot-creating actions (3.44) and carries into the penalty area (1.91).

That said, there are clearly similarities in the way they play with the Chelsea attacker’s numbers still impressively high.

While Sancho’s time in Manchester has been miserable, he demonstrates through those key dribbling metrics that important parts of his game still remain – he just needs to rediscover his confidence – and Pochettino could have been the right man to achieve that.

Having developed a whole host of young players during his time at Tottenham, helping form what was once a deadly partnership between Dele Alli and Harry Kane, the Argentine could have unearthed the talents that saw Sancho threaten to become a world-beater at Dortmund.

Sancho’s career will continue to stagnate at Man United unless he gets a move away and while Chelsea could have offered him a route out of Manchester, they chose to sign Palmer. Only time will tell as to whether that was the correct decision.