Gareth Southgate presented a united front within his England camp – declaring "I love all of my players" – after his dramatic decision to drop Raheem Sterling over a bust-up with Joe Gomez.

Late on Monday, Southgate confirmed the decision to omit Manchester City forward Sterling from this week's Euro 2020 qualifier against Montenegro after the altercation at England's St George's Park training base.

Sterling and Liverpool centre-back Gomez clashed on the field during City's 3-1 defeat at Anfield in a highly charged Premier League encounter on Sunday, and the 24-year-old conceded "emotions got the better of me" in a social media post regarding the confrontation the following day.

Southgate credited his senior players for their influence in a resolution that saw Sterling remain with the England squad for training on Tuesday, and he was keen to defuse the situation when he faced a media conference afterwards.

"I think I'm dealing with a very young squad and we're in a sport where emotions often run high," Southgate said.

"I think Raheem in his post last night explained that, for a very brief moment, his emotions ran over.

"It would be correct to say that's not the same for Joe. These things happen in football. Then you have to find a way for the group to move forward.

"That needed some time, it needed time for emotions to calm down across the board. We have some excellent senior players who played a part in bringing everyone together. You need, as a manager, to see that everyone is ready to work together moving forward.

"My priority is always the care and wellbeing of all of my players – all of my players."

When asked whether he was disappointed by Sterling's actions, Southgate added: "I love all of my players. We're like a family and all families have disagreements.

"The most important thing for any family is that you communicate through those disagreements and you work through them."

Southgate, who was keen not to be drawn on the details of the fracas, said he could not be swayed by Sterling's status as one of England's star players.

The 24-year-old is set to return to contention for Sunday's concluding qualifier in Kosovo, and the manager suggested Sterling's position in the squad's leadership group – he captained the Three Lions for the first time in June's Nations League semi-final against Netherlands – was not under threat.

"It's important to always be as fair as possible on any decision making, whether that's a senior player or a junior player," Southgate said.

"Quite a number of our senior players have been active in discussions during yesterday. That's an important process because I want to get a feel for where the group are and how we can move forward together.

"But then I'm the manager and I have decisions that are my responsibility to take.

"The decision has been made not to consider Raheem for the game on Thursday - that's the end of the matter for me. We then have to move forward.

"Keeping the group together was the most important thing. As emotions calmed yesterday, that was clearly a possibility. I'm very impressed with how the players worked that through collectively. I had to make some difficult calls."

Pressed on whether Sterling and Gomez had spoken since their row, Southgate again chose to focus upon the collective.

"It was crucial to me that everyone in the group is comfortable and is speaking and is ready to move forward with football," he said. "That was absolutely clear.

"That's why everybody is still in the camp, part of the squad and working together towards beating Montenegro on Thursday.

"I haven't been with them for every minute of the day, but all of the players are talking and communicating."