Gareth Southgate leapt to Raheem Sterling’s defence despite hooking him at half-time in Malta on Friday.
Sterling was as poor as any England player in a dreadful first half and was substituted for Marcus Rashford.
But Southgate said: “Raheem’s a lad we love. It’s difficult 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 a lump like I was.
“I was just stopping people. To go and beat people, and beat people in tight spaces, some days it happens and some days it doesn’t.
“You could see in the first half, it was the latter for Raheem but he will bounce back from that.”
At one point last week, Sterling looked as if he might be on his way to Arsenal with Manchester City considering making him part of their offer for Alexis Sanchez.
Southgate added: “He is a strong kid. Mentally he is tough and he has bounced back from things throughout his career. I have no doubt in my mind that he will cope with that.
“He started the season with Manchester City well and is of course at a club where they have an incredible amount of attacking talent but he is right in the mix with them.”
Southgate knows Friday’s team performance wasn’t easy on the eye either.
But he added: “I’m not going to judge the team too much — the most important thing is that they kept their nerve in difficult circumstances, they stayed patient, we weren’t flapping,
“Performances are going to take time and the team is going to evolve.
“There are younger players we want to get involved in this as well but equally we have to get the wins in the short term as well.
“Monday is a fantastic opportunity for us, a home game. If we get the right result we are virtually in Russia.”