Raheem Sterling to Barcelona or Arsenal makes sense; these are not steps down

The arrival of Erling Haaland at Manchester City will have knock-on effects, and for Raheem Sterling that may mean making a very big decision.

So the iceman cometh. Ivan Drago is set to enter the Manchester City building, adding to the formation of a Premier League summer transfer conga line that could dance all the way to Barcelona over the next couple of months. Erling Haaland’s arrival at Manchester City was expected to fill that left by Gabriel Jesus, who has already effectively confirmed that he wishes to leave the club, and who is still expected to move to Arsenal in the close season.

But later reports suggest that Arsenal are now looking very closely at the possibility of signing Raheem Sterling. It’s not entirely clear whether this means instead of Gabriel Jesus or as well as him (there are conflicting reports), but the appeal of the move to Sterling would seem obvious. The argument can be made that it would be a ‘step down’ for Sterling to leave Manchester City, but if Arsenal can hold onto fourth place in the Premier League, he would have the attraction of Champions League football, playing in front of crowds of 60,000, moving back to London (where he grew up from the age of five), and teaming up again with Mikel Arteta, with whom he worked at Manchester City.

It has been reported that Sterling may be set to run down his contract with Manchester City, which still has a year left to run should he not secure a departure during the summer. This state of affairs will have a pretty drastic effect on Sterling’s value in the transfer market, so it may not even have to be an either/or situation with regard to Gabriel Jesus, but this wouldn’t alter the fact that wages for bringing in these two players would also likely