Gareth Southgate explains Raheem Sterling’s second consecutive England omission | OneFootball

The England squad for this upcoming October international break has just been announced, and Raheem Sterling has been left out, for the second time in a row.

When Sterling missed the September games it was much more of a scandal as he was playing so well for Chelsea. Now, it’s less of a story as he’s actually dropped out of Mauricio Pochettino’s first team.

But such an experienced player, with so many England caps, being left out is always going to be a story, and Southgate had to address it when speaking to the press today:

“We spoke before the last squad and we’ve been happy with the wide players’ performances in the last four games in particular and in the two in March,” Southgate said in quotes picked up by the Daily Mail.

“The team are playing really well and clearly there’s some stability there.

“We have added Jarrod Bowen in those wide areas, he’s scored five in seven games and is playing really well and with the Australia game as well there’s the opportunity to learn some different things as well.”

It sounds like Southgate is genuinely just happy with the options at his disposal at the moment, and it’s hard to see Sterling changing that until he first gets back into Pochettino’s team on a regular basis and gets back to what he was going in the early weeks of the season.