Phil Thompson wouldn't have dropped Raheem Sterling and feels it should all be water under the bridge after his apology, while praising his winning mentality.
On the Raheem Sterling and Joe Gomez backlash...
As you can see, it was two highly-charged football teams with highly-charged professionals, and normally in football you have gone into battle - you have a real battle with the opposition, but once the game is over, it can be forgotten about and you can have a couple of beers in the bar. Not too many people chat in a players' lounge situation anymore, a lot of teams will refuel and get straight onto the bus, so maybe a bit of electricity was still apparent when the Liverpool and City lads met up with England.
Maybe so with Raheem Sterling because he had taken a lot of stick off the Liverpool fans. I thought he played very well on the day, but maybe he thought he was singled out for a bit of treatment and that will have been playing on his mind for 24 hours or so - it’s just frustration, but I am quite sure that they will have buried the hatchet and that both will have thought, ‘what the heck was that all about’. Hopefully, the two can move on for England’s sake.
📺 Gareth Southgate on the incident with Raheem Sterling and Joe Gomez...pic.twitter.com/FhxoAo4p0B
— Sporting Life Football (@SportingLifeFC) November 12, 2019
Has Southgate done the right thing axing Sterling?
We don’t know exactly what has happened. Knowing my own time with Liverpool when problems arose, you deal with them as you see fit. You listen to everybody’s verdict of what has happened, you take council on it, like Gareth Southgate has done, through his own coaching staff and the FA. He will deem what he did as the right course of action. If you want my honest opinion, as long as the two lads genuinely made up, I would have let it be water under the bridge.
What does it say about Sterling that he caused this fight in the England team?
Without a doubt, it is a winner’s mentality. I can only admire him for how much he has improved. To me, he is England’s go-to man, even before captain Harry Kane. The emergence of Sterling has been totally dramatic and extraordinary. He has become a top player because of his drive and I think that’s all he wants - to reach perfection. His team has been beaten in the biggest game of the season so far, and I admire him that it hurts so much.
Sterling v Gomez saga
How hard is it to try and keep club clashes out of the national team?
I would like to think over the years it has started to disperse. We had large contingents of the Liverpool team in the England squad during the 1970s and 1980s, but I never thought it got in the way of the team. We would always create a close bond and we would share that by having a few drinks, but of course these lads cannot do this sort of thing.
They are cooped up, they can’t move out of camp until they play their games, and then they only see their family for a while so it is a bit more stressful for them. Even the Manchester United lads in the 1990s, who became a big part of it all, will know that you do not like to feel overpowered when you are the majority because there is that risk of causing problems. I felt the Man Utd lads felt exactly the same. You all get along and you are all a bunch of friends. Gary Neville would get along with Steven Gerrard, not just Neville but all the Man Utd England lads.
"Everyone knows what that game means to me."
— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) November 12, 2019
Raheem Sterling has confirmed that he had an angry clash with Joe Gomez at England training yesterday following Liverpool's 3-1 win against Manchester City on Sunday.
Is this why the ‘golden generation’ could never play more as a team as there were too many from Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea etc who didn’t get on from club matches?
Nothing seemed to surface that there was conflict of rifts between these three clubs. There was admiration and jealousy from and towards each other, but from what I am led to believe they got along - I am not sure that social media, which is driving a lot of this stuff now, is a thing that you can keep a lid on. There was some stuff that went on - I did not think the media found out about some things and only one or two incidents, but nothing much.
What needs to happen now in the squad to stop the rows breaking out?
These are highly-charged, top professionals coming together, playing at the very top of their games, so you can’t really do anything for it. You can talk all you want about it, but there is passion that runs over. I would rather have these people than have people with no bite - when you go out onto the pitch you need different characters and you need leaders. If people were shrinking violets you would not have a team.
