Hodgson defends 'tired' Sterling over drop-out

Roy Hodgson has defended Raheem Sterling after admitting the 19-year-old was left out of England's starting line-up against Estonia because he said he was feeling "tired". Liverpool's Sterling came off the bench in the second half of England's 1-0 win in Talliinn, having told Hodgson in training on Saturday that was fatigued, despite only playing 45 minutes in Thursday's 5-0 win over San Marino at Wembley. "People don't like it when you simplistically tell the truth. We were training at The Grove doing a light session and some work on how we wanted to play the game tactically," Hodgson said. "Just before we started, Raheem had done the warm up and he came to me and said 'look I really am feeling a bit tired, I'm not in my best form at the moment because I am feeling a bit tired'.