Manager to tell Sterling: Don’t let your head drop
Gareth Southgate plans to give Raheem Sterling an England confidence boost ahead of handing him a recall for the World Cup qualifier against Slovenia.
Sterling suffered the ignominy of being substituted at half-time against Malta during England’s last meet-up and started the next game against Slovakia on the substitutes’ bench. But with Dele Alli suspended for tomorrow night, Sterling is set to earn a recall to the starting XI and could even line up in the No 10 position behind Harry Kane.
Southgate, the England manager, plans to speak with Sterling about his confidence and the need for him not to allow his head to drop if things do not go his way early in the game against Slovakia. Sterling’s morale also suffered a setback at Euro 2016, when he described himself as “the hated one” after supporters criticised him.
Since being dragged off at halftime against Malta and being benched for the Slovakia game, Sterling has scored four goals for City and started in their past three Premier League matches. Following the victory over Chelsea, Sterling’s City manager, Pep Guardiola, was asked if the forward had been affected by his Malta substitution. “No, it was good,” said Guardiola. “These kinds of players have to know, when you win, you’re happy but then the next day another test, and they play bad, OK, new chance in two, three days again.
“So, improve in the good things and bad things and do it again. Like everybody, we try to help him, to try to understand the game, his strong points, to benefit the team.
“Raz is a young guy, he has to know that job is not easy, so he cannot expect it to always go well. I want to see him when it’s going bad in the national team, how he reacts. He mustn’t complain. Ideally, he’d say, ‘OK I’m here, manager, coach. Gareth Southgate/pep, I show you how good I am’. That is the only way to become better.
“He likes to play more in the middle than be wide on the line, but [against Chelsea] the way we want to play, it was so necessary to be wide, go, make an action. He’s so young, he has a lot of space to improve, in the last pass, the last assist, to be more clear in the last action. When he’s able to get that, he will become a top, top player.”
Meanwhile, the planned strike by London Underground train drivers tomorrow, which threatened to cause travel chaos for fans travelling to Wembley for the England match, has been called off following progress at talks.