Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne has slammed what he calls ‘unfair criticism’ of team-mate Raheem Sterling by the media.

The England forward has been subject to a lot of controversy so far this summer after he was pictured with a tattoo of a gun on his leg and arrived late to Gareth Southgate’s World Cup training camp earlier in the month.

The 23-year-old subsequently apologised to his England team-mates for his late arrival and posted a deeper meaning to his tattoo on Instagram, something the majority of people got on board with and supported.

It’s not the first time Sterling has been heckled in the press over a minor incident and it almost certainly won’t be the last, but despite the City forward saying he is unfazed by the media storm, De Bruyne has been quick to defend his team-mate – who he will likely face when England meet Belgium on the 28th June.

“Raheem is an unbelievable player,” said De Bruyne. “When he plays for England I don’t know what happens but there is always criticism about Raheem and I don’t know why.

“He’s a very good guy, he’s one of my guys and we’ve been together since day one. We have a good chemistry, we play well together and he’s only 23.

“I don’t know many guys that can show that capability of playing at that age in the Premier League.

“Why do people talk about other people when they don’t know why or for what reason?

“People are very quick to criticise other people without doing research and obviously social media is one of the bad things. Everyone has an opinion and it’s very easy to give an opinion behind a keyboard.

“As a player and as a public figure, it’s not the easiest because you know that whatever happens, whatever you do, there could be something that’s wrong with it.

“If I was him I wouldn’t care, I’d just do whatever I’d need to do to play football. What I do in my private life, if I’m happy with it and it gets criticism, that’s just the way it is.

“Everyone has to live by their own standards, but I’ve never seen Raheem do anything stupid. If he was acting dumb, doing stupid things or doing drugs or whatever, then I’d say, OK that’s a problem!

“But these days you get scrutiny for everything and that’s just the way it goes.”
[Quotes via Sky Sports]