Mauricio Pochettino makes pact with Chelsea forward Raheem Sterling to get him back into the England team before Euro 2024
- Mauricio Pochettino will work with Raheem Sterling to ensure England return
- The Chelsea boss is seeing the forward showing glimpses of his old form
- Listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport’s podcast ‘It’s All Kicking Off’
Mauricio Pochettino has made a pact with Raheem Sterling: work with me and you’ll be back in the England team before Euro 2024.
The Chelsea manager is enjoying the fruits of Sterling’s revival at Chelsea, a rigorous pre-season seeing the forward back to something like his Manchester City form, though Gareth Southgate did not recall him for England in last week’s internationals.
Sterling endured a terrible first campaign at the club after his £47million move from City, the nadir being booed by his own fans at Bournemouth, where Chelsea take on Andoni Iraola’s side on Sunday.
Pochettino said: ‘Maybe Sunday will change the boos to claps. He is motivated to perform here and help Chelsea. [But] like all top players, after that, he also wants to play for the national team.
‘We were talking and we said to him, “We are going to help you to earn your way back into the national team. You need to play well for your club and the coach is going to see and you will have more possibility to join the national team”.’
Mauricio Pochettino has made a pact with Raheem Sterling to get him back with England
Gareth Southgate did not recall Sterling for England in last week’s internationals despite form
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Pochettino has said he ‘hated’ Sterling as an opposition coach, since he caused him so many problems. ‘Now I want to enjoy him!
‘I am happy for him because he smiles every day. The objective for us is always to get the players to feel good. He is a player with experience that can help the young guys to evolve. I am so happy about his performances and about the way he behaved the last two weeks. He worked really, really hard and I hope it can translate into the competition.’
Pochettino has cited Zinedine Zidane as a reference point for patience from Chelsea fans, not just for Sterling but also the raft of young players signed in the Todd Boehly-Behdad Eghbali £1billion spree but yet to deliver, such as Mykhailo Mudryk, Enzo Fernandes and Marc Cucurella.
Pressure is now on this summer’s top arrivals such as Moises Caicedo, Nicolas Jackson, Axel Disai and Cole Palmer, to make their mark quickly, especially with Romeo Lavia, Christopher Nkunku and Wesley Fofana now injured.
‘Chelsea always have massive expectations,’ said Pochettino. ‘But it’s not fair to (say), “They’re not performing and we paid money and they need to perform at this [level]”.
Always, I use the same example: Real Madrid paid 70, 80 million for a player, his name was Zinedine Zidane. After six months you could have asked the fans in the Bernabeu, “What have we bought?!” He [only] started to perform after seven, eight months and Zidane was 26! When you bring a player who is 18, 19 or 20, be careful: they are not machines.’
A rigorous pre-season saw the forward regain something like his old Manchester City form
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