Downing: Teddy gave me England belief

SDOWNINGStewart Downing has paid a glowing tribute to Teddy Sheringham declaring that he’s played a major part in his England recall.

Talking to the London Evening Standard he said: “Teddy has been good for me. Sometimes when you bring new faces in it helps. Bringing Teddy in was something on the manager Sam Allardyce’s part.

“He was keen to get someone to help out with the forward department and he’s done well.

“Teddy is only part-time so comes in for two or three days a week, it depends on the schedule week to week.

“He works a lot with me, Diafra Sakho and Enner Valencia and so on. He provides a new voice and comes up with good ideas. After the start we have had, we can all see how he’s helped.”

Downing has regularly admitted he’d given up on an England career, but Sheringham haf  given him the belief  to earn another chance.

He said: “Teddy talked to me about getting back in the England squad a few weeks ago. He told me it could be done and challenged me to get a goal or an assist in every game for West Ham.

“He’s always telling me to affect games, make an impact. He knows what he’s talking about and certainly affected my thinking of how to be more productive.

“I have got a couple of goals already, which has been a good start. Even the one I got at Stoke was after he told me about getting on the end of more knockdowns in certain areas where goals are scored. He was in those kind of positions a lot as a player and knows how to find the net.

“When I spoke to him a few weeks ago about changing my position to the top of a diamond, he told me how he’d played there. That it isn’t just about playing well, you need to make an impact on the game by scoring or making an assist.

“My thinking has changed a lot from talking to him. He is always on at me to try and get chances, to shoot on goal more.

“Obviously he was a top player who won big trophies at Manchester United and performed well for England ,so if you can’t learn from him, you can’t learn from anybody.”

 

 

About Hugh5outhon1895

Hugh Southon is a lifelong Iron and the founding editor of ClaretandHugh. He is a national newspaper journalist of many years experience and was Bobby Moore's 'ghost' writer during the great man's lifetime. He describes ClaretandHugh as "the Hammers daily newspaper!" Follow on Twitter @hughsouthon