Gareth Southgate lauds Raheem Sterling for change in environment around him

The Manchester City player had become the centre of racism a few months ago and the England National Team boss thinks that Sterling handled it maturely.

The England national team manager Gareth Southgate is impressed by Raheem Sterling for transforming the surroundings around him, especially in the media in accordance to the hatred and racism he received.

Back in December, Sterling had accused a media outlets for encouraging racism in the portrayal of black footballers after he himself was racially attacked during Manchester City's 2-0 defeat to Chelsea.

Former English international, Rio Ferdinand also recently insisted that Raheem might not even win the Player of the Year award because of this biased thinking.

"No, because I would imagine that the other main candidate would be Virgil van Dijk and last year Mo Salah won," Gareth Southgate told to Sky when asked if he shares the same opinion as of Ferdinand.

"So I don't think that it would be as simple a situation as that really. I don't think anybody will be looking at the candidates this year on anything other than the way they've played the game."

"I think that it's been really pleasing that the narrative has changed around him and all credit for that goes to him," said the coach.

"If you went back to post-World Cup and how he must have felt about some of the reaction to his performances. For us, he was always one of the first names on the team sheet and his contribution to the team was so important," said Gareth as he is pleased with Sterling and his matureness of handling the situation.

ALSO READ

Memphis is a very important player for us- Ronald Koeman

European clubs come together to wish India on Holi

He's the best professional I've played with- Ryan Giggs on Cristiano Ronaldo

The coach continued, "The obvious thing was that he hadn't scored the goals that he would have wanted. He's managed to go back to Manchester City and everything on the pitch has brought the right level of attention."

Talking on the same issue, Paul Pogba too in the past has conveyed that he believes that Raheem Sterling is not getting the recognition he deserves. 

Paul Pogba on Raheem Sterling:????"Nobody talks about what he does on the pitch" pic.twitter.com/F43eA9bsLw

— Football Daily (@footballdaily) March 20, 2019

England is playing Czech Republic in their first EURO 2020 Qualifiers and Southgate is intent on starting the 24-year-old, who has been an integral part of the squad.

[KH_RELATED_NEWS title="Related News"][/KH_RELATED_NEWS]

"Clearly, what he's spoken about so maturely off the field has had an impact not just on football but beyond that. I think it's raised everybody's awareness about how we might report on things or comment on things. I think he has, over the last couple of months in particular, received that credit and respect that his performances have deserved," the coach added

England National team is also in the finals of the UEFA Nationa League, which will be held in Portugal in June.