Roy Hodgson must be wondering what has hit him. In his press conference after England’s paint-drying-like victory over Estonia this week he gave a brief and honest answer to a fairly straight forward question. Why hadn’t Raheem Sterling started against Estonia? Because he'd come to Roy beforehand and said that he was too tired. Then it all kicked off.
Oddly and kind of ironically, since it has ‘all kicked off’ Raheem Stirling has again been on the bench, not involving himself in any of the debates. But they have raged on none the less. Should Hodgson have said anything? Should Stirling have said anything? How best to bring on our young players? Are we working them too hard? All from an honest answer to a straightforward question. Let’s address these points now.
Should Hodgson have said anything? He’s been labelled a dinosaur for doing so. He was simply being honest when asked a direct question about Sterling’s involvement (or lack thereof) in this week’s England game. If he’d have kept the reason for Sterling’s absence to himself and we found out later we’d have probably slaughtered him for that, demanding honesty from our manager. But the truth remains that by conceding that Sterling had asked to sit out the game because he was tired, he was the catalyst for all the negative press that followed.
None of us are naïve enough to think that we know everything that happens at our football clubs. Plenty is kept behind closed doors because it’s deemed that public and press intrusion would be counterproductive. Maybe this is just another of those things that should have been kept behind closed doors.
Should Stirling have said anything? If he was feeling tired, and to some it’s a fairly big ‘if’ after 45 minutes against the mighty San Marino, was he right to withdraw himself from the team? Hodgson thought so, saying that had Sterling allowed himself to be selected while not feeling 100% he’d have been robbing someone else of a chance. What’s more, it could be argued that Sterling’s loyalty is meant to be with the England team and maybe he’d have been hindering that team by knowingly giving a half-arsed performance. With Sterling not fit, his replacement Adam Lallana was probably a better option so why would Sterling wish to stand in the way of that?
The other school of thought is that Sterling should have had such a determination to play for England that there should have been no stopping him. It’s a sentiment echoed by Sky’s Jamie Carragher. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Carragher thinks this way, he’s ‘old school’, a throwback to a more honest age of footballer. Carragher said that for club or country there’s not a single thing he would do to make himself unavailable. He would hate to give a manager a reason not to pick him.
Wider questions have been raised about how we look after and nurture our young players. The general consensus has always been that our players need more game time. Foreign players are limiting the chances of our young players, they need first team football to develop, etc etc, you’ve heard it all before. But as soon as we get the faintest hint of one of our young stars being overexposed, then a new argument begins to appear out of the woodwork. Our players need to be introduced to the game slowly. Their development needs to be watched closely and their recovery times after games needs to be sufficient.
Maybe this is just a rare case and not too many firm conclusions can be drawn from just one case. Sterling is only 19, much younger than most of the England and Liverpool squads and at an age where many feel that his body is still developing and needs to be managed carefully. It’s also true that he has played more than three times as many minutes this season as he had by this point last season. And, lastly, he’s developed into such a player that so much is required and expected of him at club and international level. Can we really begrudge him being a little tired?
Maybe the only thing we’ve really learnt is how much we as football fans love a whinge. We complain when our players aren’t given opportunities, we complain when they’re played too much. We complain when our manager is straight with us, we complain when he hides the truth. We complain when players duck out of games, we complain when they play but are not at their best. Maybe the best thing to do is just head to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint and wait for all of this to blow over.