Manchester City star Raheem Sterling should be in the running for the PFA Player of the Year award, England manager Gareth Southgate has said.

In an exclusive interview with talkSPORT at our brand new studios, Southgate spoke glowingly of the Manchester City winger, who has undoubtedly been one of the Premier League’s standout performers this season.

Off the pitch, Sterling has been at the centre of football’s fight against racism and received widespread praise for speaking out after suffering alleged abuse at Stamford Bridge in December.

4 Gareth Southgate joined talkSPORT in our brand new studios

And Southgate has been mightily impressed with the 24-year-old’s attitude in the face of adversity.

“The thing that stands out with Raheem is his tenacity,” Southgate told Adrian Durham and Darren Gough on Drive.

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“His recovery from setbacks and his resilience and proving people wrong – he’s always responding in the right way to those challenges.

“It’s incredible. He’s gone to a big club [Liverpool] when he was very young and dealt with that.

4 Sterling has had a fantastic season for City

“Another big move to City, adapted to that. They sign new players every summer and you’d think his place was under threat, but he’s come through that. I think he’s had a phenomenal season.

“He’s got to be one of the candidates for player of the year.”

And the England manager expects one of his brightest talents to get even better in the future, leading a cluster of hugely promising young English players.

“At 24 there’s still things he’ll be learning about, you can see the areas which he gets into more regularly now, and he’s more confident in front of goal, prepared to hit things earlier.

“He’s working with a fantastic coach at his club. Those things will only improve him.”

These are exciting times for the national team, who suddenly boast a number of attacking options after years lacking a creative spark.

And the England boss admits he has no idea how to fit them all in the starting XI.

Paul Edwards 4 Gareth Southgate visited the new talkSPORT studios on Thursday

“I’ve got 30 million people with an opinion on how we can do it,” he joked.

“For years we’ve said, have we got creative players? Have we got people who can open up defences? And now you’ve got this young crop coming through.

4 Callum Hudson-Odoi is one of many exciting English prospects

“That team who won the Under-17s World Cup, for example. You’ve got people like [Callum] Hudson-Odoi, [Phil] Foden, [Morgan] Gibbs-White, Rhian Brewster.

“We’ve got an Under-21s final this summer and it’s a really exciting group.”