Norwich striker Grant Holt has hit out at the England national set-up, and believes he should have been called up to the squad last season.
The 31-year-old, who scored 15 goals for Norwich City in 2011/12 on their return to the Premier League, had been touted for an inclusion by Roy Hodgson, yet the England boss overlooked the forward.
Holt has since suggested the oversight is because he does not play for a fashionable club, citing Southampton s Rickie Lambert as another player overlooked at international level despite his good form domestically.
It bugs me, Holt told the Daily Telegraph. I should have been there in the summer; if not the Euros, I should definitely have had the chance in the two friendlies before.
It bugs me when a squad is called and I don t hear Rickie Lambert s name mentioned once, not one breath, and he s on form, scoring, similar to what I did last year.
Is it the fashionable club thing? Are we so stuck in our ways that you have to be at Manchester United, Arsenal or Tottenham?
If I d been at Arsenal as a kid, and done what I d done last year for Arsenal, would I have got in the squad? Yes. So what difference does it make if I m doing it for a so-called lesser team Norwich, banging 18 goals in?
Why am I not getting a sniff? There was no contact.
This year, there s no way in the world I m going to get called up. My goal tally is not good enough (he has scored five goals in 30 appearances), but that was disappointing last year. I was scoring against the top teams, United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and I don t get the nod. It just disheartens me.
When I then watched the Euros and saw England go out with a whimper, it made it tougher to take. If they d gone to the semi-finals, it would have been easier to say I should never have been near it.
I watched that and thought, would I have made that difference?
