Kop star came on for final half-hour of Sunday's Euro 2016 qualifying win in Estonia after confessing to the manager pre-match he felt jaded
Roy Hodgson leapt to the defence of Raheem Sterling after the Liverpool teenager claimed he was too tired to play for England, writes John Cross in Tallinn.
Captain Wayne Rooney grabbed the late winner here in Estonia after 19-year-old Sterling - left on the bench by Hodgson after admitting he needed a break - came on for the final half-hour.
Hodgson also suggested teenage Liverpool star Sterling could be struggling to cope with being in the spotlight for club and country.
He said: “People don’t like it when you tell the truth. Sterling has been excellent for us and I think he’ll be excellent going forward.
“We were training, doing a light session. Raheem had done the warm up and said, ‘I really am feeling a bit tired. I am not in my best form at the moment because I am feeling a bit tired’.
“So I said, 'Best thing is Adam Lallana starts the game and you rest and I bring you on from the bench,' simple as that. When he came on there was nothing wrong with him.
“There is an awful lot going on in your head as well. Perhaps it’s quite simply the season hasn’t started quite as well for Liverpool as they wanted. He’s a player who’s always in the focus and spotlight for England and Liverpool, maybe that’s had some effect.
“Here, it was a question of having two players, who both did pretty well against San Marino and one is telling me he is a bit tired and jaded the other one is full of beans. We put the one on who is full of beans and keep the other one up your sleeve.
“I think it would be wrong of players to try to fool me into thinking they are ready and they’re 100 per cent when they aren’t, because they are robbing somebody else of an opportunity.
“Don’t forget, it was two days after quite a difficult game against San Marino. It was fatigue he hadn’t managed to shake off after the San Marino game, it was no more complicated than that.
“In mitigation of a young player, when you break into a team like Liverpool and you have a fantastic season, then you go to the World Cup and you do well and people regard you as one of the few who lived up to his reputation, then you come back and you’re still only 19 years of age...
Estonia 0-1 England in pictures:
"There are a lot of other things that play a part in people’s make up. It isn’t quite as simple as the training you’re doing maybe taking some juice from your legs.”
Hodgson admitted England made hard work of the 1-0 win over a side reduced to 10 men two minutes into the second half, and said they should have won this Euro 2016 qualifier more comfortably.
He added: “”It was harder than should have been because created so many opportunities in the first half particularly. We played some good football, the ball was in and around their box a lot of the time.
“I saw so many goals coming that didn’t come so in the end it became harder work.”
England's Group E as it stands
| P | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts | |
| England | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0 | +8 | 9 |
| Slovenia | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 1 | +2 | 6 |
| Lithuania | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | +1 | 6 |
| Estonia | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 2 | -1 | 3 |
| Switzerland | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 3 | -3 | 0 |
| San Marino | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 7 | -7 | 0 |
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