Gareth Southgate believes he is seeing a fresher Raheem Sterling at the European Championship after the forward’s fall from favour at Manchester City.
Sterling, 26, had been one of Pep Guardiola’s most important players since the 2017/18 season and the start of their successful trophy haul under the manager.
But he could not get regular game time in the final three months of the last campaign as Phil Foden and Riyad Mahrez outperformed him.
That lack of game time made Sterling a surprise pick for England’s opening game of the Euros, yet the former Liverpool youngster was the best attacker against Croatia and after three games his two goals are the only ones the Three Lions have mustered as a team.
Southgate feels justified in keeping faith with Sterling, and also thinks that his lack of club minutes has been to England’s benefit at a time when collectively they have struggled to keep their intensity through matches.
“We've always felt that we can't have all the scoring burden lie with Harry [Kane] and over the last couple of years - probably since the game in Seville [where he scored a hat-trick against Spain] which was a real lift-off moment for Raheem - he's transferred his club goalscoring form into the matches with us.," said the coach.
"When you can get wide players scoring in that way then that's a huge lift for the team. We've had no doubts about that, we were very clear on that. We know the end of the season he wasn't necessarily a regular for his club but perhaps we're reaping the benefits of that in that perhaps he's a little bit fresher than he might have been."
