England star Raheem Sterling defended by Joe Gomez's dad over scratch row

Joe Gomez’s father, Augustus, has defended Manchester City star Raheem Sterling following the canteen clash that left the Liverpool ace with a scratched face.

Sterling and Gomez had a stand-off at Anfield on Sunday during the Reds’ 3-1 win over City but their issues weren’t resolved after the final whistle as they clashed at St George’s Park on Monday whilst on international duty with England.

However, Augustus Gomez doesn’t hold a grudge against Sterling as he believes the incident was “normal” and doesn’t blame the winger as he believes it was all borne out of his frustration.

He told the Daily Mirror: “It is normal.

“Young people are very ambitious and very willing to win for their team and that is what happens.

“If Liverpool were losing, one of the players would be agitated as well.

“Raheem Sterling – it is not his fault.

“Fans were agitating him and he took it out because of his frustration.

“We all understand that; it is football, we are human beings.”

Augustus admits that his son didn’t expect things to come to a head this way during training but is proud of how he dealt with it as he has now “brushed it away”.

The Liverpool defender is now “definitely fine”, despite the big scratch on his face, and Sterling has apologised directly to him for the incident.

He added: “He wasn’t expecting it, it happened, he brushed it away and he carried on.

“He trained today, he is fine apart from the scratch on his face.

“He is fine, he is definitely fine. I spoke to him, I spoke to his agent; let him just be happy and smiling and so-forth.

“He is very passionate about what he does.

“Raheem apologised.

“We just want to see that Joe is happy, that his wife is happy, we are happy and that is it.”

source: express.co.uk