Gareth Southgate has backed Raheem Sterling to bounce back from a testing week when England host Slovakia in Monday night's World Cup qualifier at Wembley Stadium.
The 22-year-old scored a stoppage-time winner as Manchester City beat Bournemouth 2-1 in the Premier League last weekend, but was then sent off for excessive celebrations.
Sterling's future at the Etihad Stadium was also in doubt as he was reportedly close to joining Arsenal as a makeweight in the Alexis Sanchez deal, only for it to fall through.
The winger was taken off at the break by Southgate as the Three Lions struggled to break Malta down, before the visitors improved after the break to eventually run out 4-0 winners.
"Look, he's a lad we love," Southgate told Sky Sports News. "Of course it's difficult [to be taken off] but he took it really professionally.
"He is a player we have a lot of time for. He's really ballsy. As a creative player, some days everything you do works and some days it [doesn't].
"It is much harder to be a creative player than the lump that I was, because I was just stopping people and that's much easier.
"To go and beat people, and to beat people in tight spaces, some days that happens and some days, it doesn't. In the first half, it was the latter for Raheem but he will bounce back from that."
Sterling joined Man City from Liverpool in 2015 for an initial £44m, rising to £49m.
Giuseppe Labellarte
