Lost in translation: Upson wants to be King?

Ledley gets selected for England. Harry has a fit. Fabio explains he wanted to see King for himself within the England set-up. King arrives. King leaves. Harry has another twitch aimed towards Fabio, who cites the Hutton injury issues to call Harry a hypocrite. Words still exchanged via exaggerated tabloid articles, including the possiblity of King perhaps being selected for England in the future. In what type of capacity, who knows.

It then all went quiet for about 20 seconds, and Matthew Upson decided that his opinion on the subject was so important, he shared it with us. Not Rio. Or Terry. But Upson. Here's the quote:

“The Ledley King situation is difficult as he is a fantastic player and everybody sees his performances. It is amazing how he can perform at that level without training.

But when you come here with England, there is a big emphasis on the training. We turn up on Monday and the training is intense, full-on. You have to recover in the afternoons because we do that all week. It would be difficult to excuse a player from training and then play him in the team. That would not fit in with the culture of the squad"

Hilarious. What culture of the squad is Upson refering to exactly? The one that sees us losing penalty shoot-outs or the one that sees players who shine for their club but fail to do so for their country when it really matters? King can handle himself just fine, whether it's rolling out of Faces nightclub or sticking Drogba in his pocket for 90 minutes - he can out perform most even if his knee is held together by blue-tac. Whether he trains or not is neither here or there. Except that it probably does mean playing for England is a broken dream. Yet, Upson still felt the need to railroad our Ledley via the red tops. Such is the concern of the young lad that he'll fall even further behind in the pecking order.

Culture of the squad, it appears, is to look after ones own agenda.