It's official: Raheem Sterling is a Chelsea player.
The Blues have landed the Man City attacker for a cool £50m on a five-year contract and he becomes the first signing of the Todd Boehly era at Stamford Bridge.
Having passed a medical in London, Sterling has flown out to Los Angeles to be announced as a Chelsea player and join up with his new teammates.
Attention now turns to the shirt number he will don during his time at Stamford Bridge, with several favourable digits for attackers already taken.
Sterling previously wore the number seven at Man City, but that is unavailable - barring a change - as N'Golo Kante is the current incumbent. The former Liverpool starlet wore 31 during his time at Anfield.
In terms of other numbers suitable for attackers, Timo Werner sports 11 and Christian Pulisic is the number 10 at Chelsea - Sterling's preferred number at international level.
However, there are a couple of squad numbers free that might take his fancy...
Chelsea squad numbers available to Raheem Sterling
Although there are plenty available, the most realistic that a new first-team signing might take are...
- 2
- 4
- 9
- 15
- 17
- 25
- 26
- 30
- 32
The nine or 17 shirts seem the most likely bets, with the former so-called cursed number freed up when Romelu Lukaku returned to Inter on loan earlier in the window.
Source : 90min