Former Chelsea star Vinnie Jones has urged Raheem Sterling to retire and end his career at the age of 29, turning down the prospect of a swap deal to Manchester United this month.
After being cast aside by Blues boss Enzo Maresca and left out of the Chelsea squad for their opening three matches of the season, Sterling has been told that he is free to leave Stamford Bridge.
Few clubs can match Sterling’s current wages, with the England forwardowed £70million by Chelsea over the remaining three years of his contract. One of them, however, is United and they are open to sending wantaway star Jadon Sancho in the opposite direction.
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But Jones, who retired at 34 after becoming a player/coach at Queen’s Park Rangers before going on to have a successful acting career, believes that Sterling should leave football before he is forced to “drift down the leagues”.
“Sterling not being in the squad was a little eyebrow-raiser,” Jones told the Daily Mail. “Everything comes to an end though and he's done all right. He scored a few goals, and he might do a job for someone else, but he's had a fantastic career and if I was him I might think about going into something else.
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“He must be financially set up for life. So, go and enjoy life. He's given the sport a lot in terms of England fans and at Liverpool and Man City.
“He's given a lot of fans a lot of enjoyment over the years and I don't like seeing top players like him drift down through the leagues. I hope he doesn't do that. I had a journalist once say that I would end up back at Wealdstone. So I spent my whole career proving him wrong.”
Jones has also laid into Chelsea’s ‘bomb squad’ that has seen as many as 15 first-team players train away from the senior group, with the club looking to move them on before Friday’s transfer deadline.
Sterling and Ben Chilwell are some of the big names anticipating exits this week, but there is plenty of work to be done or Maresca could be left with some unhappy players until at least January.
“What they've got is a massive chequebook, and they're desperate to get back to the days under Roman Abramovich, aren't they?” Jones added.
“I think you'll see quite a few of them, sort of either left out or moving on in the last week of the transfer window, as that's a b****y big squad to pay wages to. With 40-odd players, I don't know how that's going to pan out.”
