In all fairness to Gareth Southgate, I thought he would handle this terribly and there would be an awkward feeling in the England camp all week following another bust up in training between Raheem Sterling and Joe Gomez.
Presuming it was Sterling who started it, so he’s acted decisively and correctly to show everyone that he won’t tolerate that kind of behaviour and it doesn’t matter how good you are – everyone needs to behave properly.
It’s a huge embarrassment for Raheem Sterling anyway, he’s clearly still rattled from Man City’s loss to Liverpool yesterday but he needs to show his professionalism and get on with it.
READ MORE: Raheem Sterling and Joe Gomez have to be SEPARATED again after bust up in England training
There may be some fallout from this when it comes to selecting Sterling for squads in the future, but this should hopefully allow the team to focus on preparing for the Montenegro game.
Twitter is always an interesting place after this kind of event. Naturally the Liverpool fans will take any opportunity to stick the boot into Sterling, but it seems most fans are against him for the way he’s been acting, but it looks like many feel Gomez should’ve faced the same punishment:
Honestly should drop both players, if they’ve been working on separating rivalries then any player that mentions it should be dropped. And players like sterling in this case who respond to people mentioning the rivalry should be dropped
— bray (@braydze) November 11, 2019
Drop both there acting like children
— Premier League Fanpage (@PL__Fanpage) November 11, 2019
Rather drop neither or drop both.
— Lfcpassion_ (@LFCpassion_) November 11, 2019
Drop Gomez as well, not that he’d be playing but, he shouldn’t have brought club into country
— Lewis (@LewispAVFC) November 11, 2019
Drop Gomez too then
— will thomas (@willthomas67) November 11, 2019
The fact that Gomez stays in the squad must suggest that Southgate doesn’t see any problems with his actions. It could well be the case that he was winding Sterling up, but the Man City man needs to control his temper if that’s the case.
It was always risky to put the players together the day after a scuffle broke out, especially during such an important game. Maybe Southgate should’ve given them an extra day to get that game out of their system, but that might be a lesson to be learned for future squads.
It will be fascinating to see how Sterling reacts to this over the next few months.