Hodgson gave Sterling his England debut in 2012 and had no doubts he could develop into the player he is now.
Roy Hodgson gave Raheem Sterling his England debutThe City forward scored 25 goals in all competitions last season and has made a blistering start this campaign with nine in 11 matches.
The Palace manager also joked that he hoped the 24-year-old would repay him for all the praise in Saturday’s match, which is live on talkSPORT.
When asked about what most impressed him about Sterling’s development, he told talkSPORT: “It is the goalscoring. He was always a fantastic dribbler. He was always a very, very hard worker, could make good runs most of the time.
“I remember in Switzerland when he played in that position behind the front players, as he was doing for Liverpool at the time, he was quite outstanding.
“That was the criticism that could be levelled at him then, and often was, much to my displeasure as I would see him playing well and growing in confidence only to see that battered by attention he was getting elsewhere from social media and sometimes the media itself.
“It was draining his confidence. The big thing for Raheem is now there is no drain on his confidence and there is no doubts.
“I never had doubts about his ability and that has now largely been accepted by everybody. Of course, he is playing in a team that creates lots of chances and when he is able to get into the right areas he scores goals from it.
“On this subject, too, I think his maturity as a person is really fascinating to watch in terms of all the responsibility he has accepted not just as a Man City player, needing to score goals and play brilliantly every week to keep his place in the team, but also shouldering a very heavy burden on racism and the attention that is being paid to this racist problem we have.
“I think he’s been a brilliant spokesman and I can heap praise on him in the hope he will repay me by playing very badly.”