Sterling was left out of the Blues squad for Sunday's 2-0 defeat by Manchester City and his representatives released a statement questioning the decision - a move which did not go down well with some former players.

"The only thing I can say it has been a technical decision," said Maresca afterwards. "In the next days we will see it and clarify the situation.

"All the players in this moment, they are Chelsea players. If they are going be Chelsea players, we are going to try and use them.

"I want Raheem Sterling, but I want all the players we have and there is no space for all of them. So for some of them, they have to leave."

Sterling joined Chelsea from City in 2022 and has made 81 appearances, scoring 19 goals.

But the 29-year-old could be the next victim of Chelsea's oversized squad which currently consists of 42 players.

However, the statement from Sterling's camp, released just before kick-off and calling for "further clarity" on his future, was met with criticism.

Sky Sports pundit and ex-City defender Micah Richards said: "We've all been left out, haven't we?

"We've all wanted to put statements out. Raheem and his team know exactly what they're doing. They're trying to make noise.

"The thing is with Chelsea, there is a lot of noise around the club already. Everyone is talking about the players, everyone is talking the ownership, everyone's talking about 'can we even guess Chelsea's starting XI'?

"Putting that statement out before the game is not good enough. That is not going to help your teammates and it's not going to help his case for getting back in the team."

Former Liverpool and England midfielder Jamie Redknapp added: "He hasn't been great since he's been at Chelsea and come into games, he hasn't been good enough.

"So if the manager doesn't want to play you, you just get on with it. You don't get your representatives to do that, especially on the day of a game. I think that's absolute rubbish."

Maresca also defended his decision to make Enzo Fernandez captain after the racism storm caused by a video the Argentinian posted on social media after the Copa America.

"The reason why is because I can see his teammates recognise him, like a reference, like a captain, and he was already captain in the pre-season when we changed Reece (James) during a game," said the Italian.

"All of us, we make mistakes. It's important to recognise Enzo did a mistake, recognised the mistake, and it's finished. At the end it's nothing important."

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