Pep’s quick fix got me firing again

NOW STERLING WANTS TO BE LOVED

THE coach might have been Pep Guardiola and the player might have cost the best part of £50million but the focus of at least one training session was how best to dribble a football.

It was an exercise, Raheem Sterling conceded yesterday, that he was first shown ‘in the under eights’, but Guardiola clearly felt his young English player had developed some bad habits.

Sometimes good coaching is not about tactical genius but getting the simple things right. Alvin Martin credits former England coach Don Howe with transforming his career when he told him to defend on the half-turn. That, Howe told the then West Ham centre half, was how it was done with England. And, judging by the season he has so far enjoyed, Sterling has had a similar benefit from Guardiola’s input.

Yesterday the Manchester City winger was actually sitting alongside the manager of England ahead of tonight’s friendly with Italy but he was asked to explain how Guardiola had helped him recover from a difficult first year at City that concluded with a miserable experience at Euro 2016.

It was so bad Sterling even tagged himself the ‘hated one’, such was the stick he received from England fans. That said, only yesterday did he realise there was an online campaign to raise enough money to fly him home from France. ‘I didn’t see that,’ he said.

Sterling believes the country will reap the rewards if the players feel the ‘love’ of the nation. ‘The players that are there, if we get behind them and give them love you wouldn’t know how much that would help them and boost their confidence.

‘If you want your country to do well, as everyone says, bring a positive light into it. Make the boys go off to the World Cup with a clear head knowing everyone’s behind them. Trust me, you’ll definitely see a better England.’

But what of Guardiola? What role has he played in this sporting revival? The 23-year-old said: ‘He makes everyone do the simple stuff. You probably see a lot of us passing out from the back. How you turn out with the ball. It makes our football quicker and makes you think better. It’s what he sees and the attention to detail. If you see a two-yard pass, pass it.

‘When I used to dribble, I’d be on the wing and I’d control it with the outside of my foot. It slows the ball down. He brings you back to what you used to do with the under eights, open your body up, get the rhythm going again. It’s little details like that. When you’re playing a game you probably don’t pick up on it.

‘Little touches outside your foot, trapped under your foot, he’s telling you to get to the left back quicker, open your body out and take it with you instead of just controlling it and stopping. Little details, even though you’re thinking I already know this.’

Sterling described the Catalan as ‘a good person’. ‘Especially for young players,’ he said. ‘I feel before I was more raw; when I got the ball I wanted to take someone on, beat someone. Now I am trying to pick my moments, if it is on, if it is not, and try to get in the box as much as I can. That’s mainly where I am now.’

Southgate was already listening intently but his interest in the exchange escalated when Sterling referenced him. Asked why it has been three years since he last scored for England, Sterling jokingly blamed the man to his left.

‘It is because the gaffer takes me off early,’ he said with a smile. ‘No, it is a different environment, a different set-up. I should be scoring a lot more for England. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I’ve done that at my club. I wasn’t scoring a lot of goals there either, but that’s changed.’

He did, however, stress that ‘even at Liverpool’ many of his goals ‘came late in games’. And the fact is no other player in the Premier League has scored more goals in the last 10 minutes of a game this season. So maybe Southgate should leave Sterling on when he has hooked him in five of the seven games he has started.

Not that Sterling is looking to shirk responsibility. He started the press conference by insisting that England had not yet benefited from his own rise in standards, stating that on the international stage there was still plenty of room for improvement.

That might well be true, however composed he looked against Holland last Friday, but it remains a significant step up from where he was two years ago. ‘I had a rough year, my first at City, a big club for a big transfer fee,’ he said. ‘There was a lot of talk, a lot of pressure. I didn’t think I was being spoken about in a fair manner.

‘As a young boy, I was 20-21, I didn’t think I was being treated right. It can affect anyone. So it was about how I bounced back, how I had to try and move on. Not let that defeat me.

‘It was disappointing when you put on the shirt and get negative feedback. But at the same time the fans want to see you perform well. They’re not doing it in a malicious way, it’s to make you know you need to step up.’

Ahead of the last game before he picks his squad for this summer’s World Cup, Southgate could not have seemed happier. Here, after all, was an important member of his side in good form off as well as on the pitch.

And he encouraged Sterling to take some credit, however influential Guardiola might have been. ‘If a player isn’t willing to learn, and have the mindset and determination to improve, then all of those messages are wasted,’ he said.