…. and concentrate on England!
Jamie Vardy was instructed to make up his mind about his transfer to Arsenal before the England team flew out for the Euros yesterday, but the deadline passed with nothing to show for it but a changed Twitter profile picture that seemed to indicate that the striker would be staying at Leicester.
There are other Arsenal rumours this morning that the talks have been delayed because of the projected length of the contract, but whatever the reason, the England boss Roy Hodgson is not happy about it, and doesn’t want the 29 year-old distracted during the competition.
Woy is aware that an outright ban on transfer discussions is impossible to police in this age of the internet, but it seems that he has given Vardy a new deadline of making his mind up before England’s first game against Russia.
“We are not trying to block players’ futures or transfers but, as far as we are concerned, our ongoing theme is that England is England, your club is your club,” he said. “While you are with England, we want you to stay focused on us.
“Whether they [agents] come to the hotel or not is a moot point. They will be talking to the players face to face, on the phone or via Skype or Facebook — who the hell knows? — but one thing this group of players know and have accepted is that when you are on England duty, you are on England duty.
“It is not a question of you sorting out your future, or diving off for medicals. We control all of that and you have to accept there is a good chance that, if you say you want to go for a medical, that we will say: ‘We are not allowing that and you better bring your people here.'”
So, as usual, Arsenal fans are going to be left in suspense after thinking that a deal was done and dusted. The new deadline is Saturday, but if nothing is agreed by then we can expect Hodgson to put his foot down and ban any more talks until England get knocked out in the quarter-finals….
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