Some English Players Don't Want To Play For Their Country

Harry Redknapp is the marmite of football management, you either love him or hate him. However he is an England man through and through, and there was a reason why many wanted him to become England manager following the resignation of Capello.

This morning he had some words for the press that are both worrying and unsurprising:

"When full internationals came around, two or three players didn't want to go and play for England,"
Redknapp said.

"They'd come to me 10 days before the game and say: 'Gaffer, get me out of the game. I don't want to play in it.'"

"I said to them: 'It's your country. You should want to play,' he said.

"And it's only going to get worse. They see the stick that the England players get. They're earning fantastic money at their clubs, they're all playing in the Champions League and they think: 'Do we need that aggro?'"

For many years the desire of the English players has been questioned, do they really want to be here. Now we can't make the mistake of believing that all England players have the same thoughts. I don't question the loyalty or desire of players like Steven Gerrard, but a World Cup squad needs to be 23 players committed to the same cause, otherwise it will break down.

Redknapp would not go on to name the players who approached him about not wanting to go on international duty. However you have to imagine it was when he was manager of Tottenham between 2008 and 2012. In 2010, they reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League, so that team is a good place to start.

You have the likes of Defoe, Dawson, Crouch, Lennon, King, in the end it's just all idle speculation as we have no idea if these players approached Harry to get them off international duty. However it's disgusting to hear that these players would rather not play for their country than get a little aggro for failure, they get paid enough money to deal with the criticism that comes with failure.