Gareth Southgate may be snubbing Raheem Sterling in his recent England player lists because he’s yet to get over his unhappiness over something the Chelsea star did last year.
This is according to Daily Mail pundit, Ian Ladyman, who spoke about the 28-year-old’s predicament with fellow pundit, Chris Sutton on the It’s All Kicking Off podcast.
Despite arguably being in his best form since he moved to Chelsea, Sterling has twice been snubbed by Southgate, as he invited players for England’s international engagements.
Ladyman has suggested that this could be a result of Sterling’s decision travel back to England to comfort his family after his home was burgled while he was with the Three Lions at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar— a competition Southgate’s side eventually exited at the quarter finals stage, despite Sterling’s return.
Ladyman said: “He goes for players who’ve done well for him in the past.
“[Kalvin] Phillips, [Jordan] Henderson, [Marcus] Rashford – you can also mention [Harry] Maguire – are players who have consistently done well for Gareth. And he likes that, he rewards that!
“Now, he’s actually gone against that a little bit with Sterling because Sterling is a player who, certainly up until the Euros that we had here, was always in Gareth’s team.
“And probably up until the World Cup, he was always in his team. And he’s turned his back on him for now.”
Ladyman’s co-host, Sutton asked in a bid to get more clarity: “So what’s the story there with Sterling?”
Ladyman replied: “Gareth claims there isn’t one. Gareth claims it’s on form and it’s to do with the emergence of people like Saka and Grealish and Foden and the competition for places. We’re not sure that we’re quite buying that one.”
Sutton then asked whether there was more to the story than people are being made to believe, to which Ladyman said: “The suspicion is that there is.
“There’s a suspicion that there’s a lingering sense of distaste from what happened at the World Cup when Raheem went home. But then, you know, he had been burgled.”
The pundit however, added that this was only his own suspicion, and there was no certainty around it.