Joe Lovejoy told the Sunday Supplement England's Ledley King call-up was foolish
King's injury sparked controversey
Joe Lovejoy believes a lack of communication between the Football Association and Tottenham Hotspur has caused the Ledley King controversy to explode out of proportion.
The Sunday Times journalist told the
Sunday Supplement a simple phone call could have avoided all of the trouble caused by King's removal from the England squad due to his knee injury problems.
"It wasn't mischievous it was just a lack of communication. All it needed was for Fabio Capello or somebody to ring Spurs and have a conversation with Harry Redknapp and Harry would have said 'look I'm afraid he's totally shot, he can't play two games in a week, it would do him no good at all'."
Bitter
However, the incident sparked into a bitter exchange of words between Capello and Redknapp, which Lovejoy believes has its roots in comments made by Redknapp earlier in the season. "It started when Harry was on television commentating on the England v Czech Republic match," he said.
"When asked about Capello's 4-3-2-1 system Harry criticised the formation, criticised the performance and criticised his treatment of Steven Gerrard. Obviously Capello got the hump with that and relations have been strained ever since.
"I think Capello also believes Redknapp was the biggest threat to him getting the England job. There was quite a swell behind Harry when the job was vacant and unfortunately the old bill came in, raided his house, the FA took fright and it became a non-starter. So I think Capello regarded him in some way as a rival."
Foolish
Despite the arguments Lovejoy thinks it was foolish to call the Spurs defender up in the first place. "He can't train, he wouldn't have started the match anyway - so what on earth was the point in calling him up to sit on the bench?
"What's he going to do, just sit and watch? If they do make him go out his knees going to blow up and who is that going to benefit?"
Hutton
Lovejoy also criticised Capello for raising comparisons with Alan Hutton, who Spurs released to play for Scotland, despite injury concerns. "It was disingenuous of Capello to liken the situation to that of Alan Hutton going to Scotland, which was the last dig Capello had.
"Hutton isn't rated by Harry, he's a reserve right back at best at Tottenham so it wasn't going to bother Harry at all if he was going to go away because he wasn't going to play him.
"Ledley is an entirely different situation. Ledley is arguably the most import player at Tottenham - Alan Hutton is way down the list."
