Hard for Sterling to shrug off local media criticism, says Hodgson

Considering he now has the job that – seemingly – every full-blooded Englishman is meant to covet, you’d think Roy Hodgson’s bitterness at being, once again, found out as a top-level manager at Liverpool would have abated. Unfortunately, no such luck as Hodgson again showed he still feels a large amount of hostility toward the club and local press.

Speaking after another draw during his England tenure, Hodgson spoke to the assembled press about his team’s display and, in particular, Sterling’s poor showing which was accompanied by boos from many of the home and away fans.

He said:”I think he (Sterling) is going through a bad time publicly.

“You can’t expect people just to shrug off the criticism he has been receiving, not least from the local media in Liverpool. That becomes national pretty quickly.

“He does ever so well and tries well to shrug it off, let his football do the talking. He needed this game to realise that, if he is going to get it out of his system, he’s going to have work harder still and get a thicker skin than he has at the moment. We only took him off today to give others the game, to air the squad.”

To hear the England manager say it, it would appear that all of the criticism Sterling has received has been unwarranted and the local press have been doing a hatchet-job on him.

Hodgson, of course, conveniently ignores the fact that Sterling is currently being followed by boos and heckling because he refuses to sign a very generous contract with the club that made him the European star he is at the moment but then, the very mention of Liverpool seems to draw the same hateful, childish response from the England manager these days, so it shouldn’t come as a big surprise.