Gerrard eager to weed out England shirkers

England captain Steven Gerrard has described allegations that English players have deliberately wriggled out of international duty as "disgusting" and called on those concerned to be publicly named and shamed.
Queens Park Rangers manager Harry Redknapp claimed on yesterday that during his time at Tottenham Hotspur, "there were two or three players who did not want to play for England".
Redknapp told BBC radio: "They would come to me 10 days before the game and say, 'Gaffer, get me out of that game. I don't want to play in that game.'
"That was how it was. I'd say, 'You're playing for your country, you should want to play.'

"(They would say) 'Nah, my girlfriend is having a baby in four weeks, I don't want to play.'"
Gerrard said that Redknapp's remarks had come as "a bit of a surprise" and urged him to disclose the identities of the players in question.

"I'd be interested to find out who those players are," Gerrard told reporters at England's World Cup training base in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, two days after his side's group-phase elimination was confirmed.
"If Harry is making a comment like that, he should name them and embarrass them. No-one in this group wants to go home.

"If it's the case, it's disgusting. For me, if a player doesn't want to be here, he doesn't deserve to be here at a World Cup.
"'They' didn't want to play for England. Who? Name them. Is it Aaron Lennon? Kyle Walker? Andros Townsend? I don't know who he means. Five years ago? Ten years ago?"
Redknapp spent four years at Spurs, between 2008 and 2012, during which time Lennon, Walker, Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch, Darren Bent, Scott Parker, David Bentley, Jermaine Jenas, Michael Dawson, Tom Huddlestone, Jonathan Woodgate and Ledley King were all involved in the England set-up.