Goals are Hod’s gift to Sterling
SPIRIT LEVEL: Sergio Aguero celebrates yet another goal
when they have success, when they win titles, always they have a common thing.
“The group is strong. Not 11 players – the group. Everybody wants to win. Everybody dreams to do that. And when that happens, everything can happen.”
Guardiola (right) sensed something big was about to happen on City’s pre-season tour of America when wins over
Real Madrid and
Spurs gave him the
“Wow” factor.
He added: “They were both really good performances but especially against Madrid when they played with eight or nine players who won the Champions League a couple of months earlier.
“We were able to say, ‘Wow, we can compete against them’. The players have to be themselves on the pitch against top teams and think we can HIGH SPIRITS: Gabriel Jesus and Raheem Sterling LETHAL LEROY: Sane jumps for joy after a goal at West Brom compete against them. Of course, it was pre-season and nothing counts then but we started to see that we can build something.
“We are in a world where you back the winners. We follow the winners and it is as simple as that. “When I win people follow me and last season when I didn’t win people didn’t follow me.
“The important thing is that we adjust. We had new players with new energy and faces and enthusiasm. “The players who play regularly are exceptional humans. “But you cannot create something when people who are not playing regularly are creating problems. Bad faces. Bad behaviour from the guys who aren’t playing. “When that happens, forget about it. You cannot stay there.
“But the guys who didn’t play regularly are now playing more. They are exceptional, too.” The only headache for Guardiola is a busy January schedule with seven matches, including the Carabao Cup semi-final with Bristol City and an FA Cup tie against Burnley.
He openly admits he is a worried man over that log-jam of games before the Champions League returns the following month with a trip to Basel.
His predecessor Manuel Pellegrini was forced to play weaker teams in that crazy four weeks and Guardiola said: “I am worried about that. To handle four competitions, I don’t know who will be able to do that.
“You cannot play Kevin De Bruyne every three days, for 90 minutes. They need refreshing so they can arrive at the last part of the season quite well.
“I have never lived with this situation before.
“Three competitions I handled many times – but four? Never. We are going to see how we handle the situation.”
Crystal Palace v Man City, Today,
kick-off 12pm, BT Sport CRYSTAL PALACE boss Roy Hodgson will give a wry smile if his side loses to Manchester City today and Raheem Sterling continues his remarkable scoring run.
Because he knows the part he played developing the City and England winger’s career.
Sterling has scored a career-best 17 goals already this season – including four in City’s last three matches.
Hodgson first witnessed Sterling’s emerging talent when he was manager of Liverpool.
He said: “Now he has matured into a wonderful player, just as I thought he would.
“He trained with the first team straight away when I got there.
“I gave him his Liverpool debut in a friendly against Borussia Moenchengladbach when he was 15. And I gave him his England debut as well.
“Last season I began to see signs of his maturity.
“When players burst on to the scene very young like Raheem did and everyone starts to rave about them and talk about their potential, it can very often work against them.
“They need time to get the matches under their belt. They need time to get the maturity.
“What I am seeing now is a player who still has the same level of ability – the same pace and ability to beat a man – but I am also seeing a much more STER LIFT: Hodgson gave Sterling his England debut mature individual who is seeing what being a top Premier League player in a top Premier League team is about.
“Now he has added goals to his game by getting into the penalty box a lot more often and that must be credit to the work the club is doing with him.”
Sterling has worked hard against a background of abuse, particularly in the wake of England’s Euro failure.
Hodgson added: “I am sorry but if you want to play for England that is par for the course. That is just the way things are.
“Once you put the England shirt on, just get ready for abuse. You also get a lot of praise as well.
“I think he has a very bright England future like a lot of those players that I was working with during my time there because I think they had quality and potential.
“Like Raheem they are maturing all the time.
“Harry Kane is maturing, Dele Alli is maturing, Jordan Henderson, Jack Wilshere – for all of these guys, it is two years down the line.
“Those two years of playing Premier League football and Champions League football I have always said makes a big difference. You can’t give people that.”