England vs Netherlands - Nations League 2019: Raheem Sterling ‘fuming’ after PR company’s captaincy claim

Raheem Sterling has apologised to Gareth Southgate after a PR company working for him claimed that he would be England captain for Thursday night’s Nations League semi-final against the Netherlands.

Sterling said at his press conference on Wednesday evening that he was “fuming” when he saw the press release issued by Purple PR, who have been working alongside Sterling’s management company recently.

Thursday night’s game will be Sterling’s 50th England cap, but Southgate would not be drawn on whether Sterling will captain the side. He said that to reveal who would be captain in Guimaraes would reveal too much about his team selection to Dutch manager Ronald Koeman.

Sterling, sat alongside Southgate at the pre-match press conference, admitted how disappointed he was with the morning’s events, and insisted that he did not know how it had happened.

“I couldn’t tell you that,” Sterling said, when asked why the press release had been issued. “I wore up this morning fuming. I had a conversation with Gareth. I hadn’t had a conversation with anyone in my agency, so it was a strange one to wake up to. The first thing I did after I came off the phone to my agent was see Gareth down the hallway, and I apologised to him for what had happened. I don’t know where that’s come from.”

Looking back over his England career so far, Sterling revealed that the controversy about a tattoo of a gun on his leg, that dominated the agenda before last summer’s World Cup, was his lowest moment as England player. Sterling said that it was a “real down” for him and that he had to pick himself up again in the summer after the tournament.

“Probably pre-tournament, World Cup, last summer regarding the tattoo on my leg,” Sterling said of his hardest moment. “It came off the back of a season where I thought I’d done well [Sterling won the Premier League with Manchester City in 2017-18], and I was really looking forward to going to the tournament on a positive note. To get that backlash was a real down for me, and I had to pick myself up from there. You learn and pick yourself up and go again. After the World Cup I switched off, picked up my focus and went again for my club, trying to play the football I know I can play, and not dwell on the past.”

It has only been this season that Sterling has started to score consistently for England. He got four goals in the two Euro 2020 qualifiers in March, having scored two in the crucial 3-2 Nations League win in Seville last October. Sterling pinpointed that game as the turning point for his England record.

“It was a massive moment for me,” Sterling said of the Spain game. “At 17 or 18 years of age, I wasn’t looking at my goals to games ratio. I wanted to enjoy and be free. It was only a few years ago that I realised how bad my record was with England. I put pressure on myself to end that drought, which wasn’t a great thing to do. I spoke with the manager and the other players, and I’m just glad I’ve broken that drought now.”