Villa? Juventus? Palace? Arsenal? Which club will Raheem Sterling join next after leaving Chelsea?

We don’t know if you’ve heard, but apparently it looks like Raheem Sterling might be leaving Chelsea, the one-time football club turned player-threshing facility.

The reasons for it all have been covered extensively here and elsewhere, but it does all rather beg one question: if he is indeed leaving Chelsea (like everyone actually should, to be fair) then where exactly is headed next. And no, the answer is not to fill the sudden unexpected vacancy on The One Show couch.

It is, according to those ever-reliable bookmakers, one of these places.

1. Aston Villa
Our choice when reallocating the Chelsea Bomb Squad in its entirety and a transfer that if anything, for me Clive, almost makes too much sense.

It would appear to be a fine move for both club and player, adding an extra dimension to Villa’s attack while adding a player who has vast top-level experience to a team back at exalted levels for the first time in a while.

Whatever Sterling’s next move is it’s childishly vital to us that it be a clear step up from Chelsea and at this time Villa clearly qualify on that metric.

2. Juventus
Early favourites as an Escape Route for Sterling from what has clearly became his Chelsea Nightmare, the Italian giants were already keen on the former England winger even before Sunday’s drama.

Restoring Juventus to their former glory would be a nice next chapter for Sterling, wouldn’t it? After all this unpleasantness? But at the same time it does also feel like it could go very wrong with Juventus remaining determinedly a bit crap despite the arrival of the Chelsea outcast.

There’s also a slight sticking point of Juve needing to free up some space on the ol’ wage bill before making any move. Hawking Federico Chiesa to Barcelona or some such place appears to be step one of the plan and needs to happen before stage two can begin.

3. Crystal Palace
Ah, now that’s just far more like it, isn’t it? It’s been quite strongly backed in the last day or so and quite right too, because it just fits? An upwardly mobile and pleasant London club with an enterprising and impressive manager who are in some need of lively reinforcement to their frontline.

Or it might be the second consecutive time Sterling has timed a move absolutely abysmally given Palace are busily selling all their best players and, on matchday one evidence, gone back to being a bit sh*t.

4. Arsenal
Tricky one, this. Arsenal have clearly had some success with the idea of signing former City players who know Guardiola’s ways and what it takes to go toe-to-toe with his team, but it’s not been the main factor in their current growth. There’s a clear sense they’ve already outgrown the City cast-offs they signed directly and they are now not a million miles from becoming Arsenal cast-offs.

Do Arsenal need another wide forward? Not really. Very hard to argue with compelling certainty that Sterling significantly improves their attacking roster. But we have a nagging feeling that if they do sign him then the future is filled with ‘final piece of the puzzle’ long-reads after the Gunners finally get their hands on the Premier League trophy once more.

MORE ON CHELSEA MESS FROM F365:
👉 Chelsea ‘bomb squad’, Enzo Fernandez and Joao Felix in ranking of 22 Todd Boehly mistakes
👉 Reassigning the Chelsea ‘bomb squad’: Sterling to Premier League rivals; Real Madrid land full-back
👉 No sympathy for Enzo Maresca; he signed up for the Chelsea threshing machine

5. Newcastle
And now we come with alarming haste to the mandatory section of any ‘next club’ feature. Yeah, sure, it could work. Newcastle are a good team and Sterling a good player, but it does feel a little bit like they’re here because they always are in these features these days. They are leg one of the transfer speculation trifecta. With the second leg being…

6. Tottenham
Absolutely no logical reason for this to happen, but absence of logic has only very occasionally stopped Tottenham doing anything in the past. Tottenham’s transfer policy has, in fairness, been pretty clear this year, making opportunistic and undeniably quite impressive signings of exciting young talent and then spending big money on what they hope will be oven-ready first-team picks in the positions where they are obviously deficient in the more immediate term.

Sterling doesn’t fit either category but quite rightly absolutely nobody is going to let that stop them thinking that it’s still something that could nevertheless come to pass. It shouldn’t happen and almost certainly won’t, but you can’t have a next club market for any player that doesn’t include Spurs at 20/1. These are the rules.

7. West Ham
And there’s the third leg of the transfer speculation trifecta. Feels far more likely than Spurs despite the bigger price because it just feels a much more West Ham piece of behaviour at this time. Wouldn’t be a bad bit of work either, we suspect, adding another layer to a Hammers attack that really does possess a vast amount of potential to be tremendous fun. Even if it, like the idea of signing Sterling, remains resolutely theoretical only at this time.

The third London club on this list, and it does feel like that might well be a relevant criterion to consider.

8. Fenerbahce
That’s a change of pace, isn’t it? For those who feel Sterling has perhaps not yet suffered enough, the option is apparently there for the poor sod to be shipped off to play for Jose Mourinho in Turkey. We can’t see it, although that might just be because we don’t want to.

9. Everton
Probably a better option than Fenerbahce is about the kindest thing we can find to say about this idea.

10. Manchester United
Pros: They are a less silly football club than Chelsea. Cons: Only just.