Chelsea midfielders decision to turn down England was right despite the negativity from the press.

Danny Drinkwater had turned down the opportunity to join up with the England squad for the recent game against Germany last Friday and Brazil tomorrow because he did not feel ready. 

I have to say I am baffled by the negative press that has followed this story in recent days in addition to ridiculous statements being made by the likes of Chris Sutton and Alan Shearer. Sutton claimed that he "had made the biggest mistake of his career" and Shearer stating in his weekly newspaper column that "he has the wrong attitude and should not play for England again".  It's all gone a bit too far in my view and these people need to understand the situation first before making stupid comments.

The reason I say that is because the England team is in a mess with a manager who inspires no-one at all. Yes we have qualified for the World Cup next summer but you and I both know that we are not going to achieve anything because we simply do not have enough quality throughout our strongest eleven.

Playing for England has become like a poisoned chalice. If you play and do not give the level of performance that the country demands now, you spend the next few days reading crap about how you let yourselves and the country down. The press go to town on anyone who is perceived to have not given a good enough performance.

In some cases that are very rare, you have someone like Ruben Loftus-Cheek who gives an outstanding performance and fair play to him for doing so. The problem he now has is that he will be judged on that game as the standard he needs to play at every single time he pulls on the England shirt in the future moving forward.

So to Danny Drinkwater and his apparent rejection of a call-up to the squad. Gareth Southgate explained what happened, he said:

"I wanted to find out where he felt he was. He's obviously only played 70 minutes for Chelsea in terms of starting and he felt he wasn't ready yet to play this level.

The physical demands at this level are incredibly high now, you've got to feel that you are in peak physical condition.

It's a conversation we have with the players all the time. If Danny didn't feel he was ready for that I can understand given the amount of minutes he's had." - Source: Daily Mail.

I commend Drinkwater for his honesty and believe that the likes of Alan Shearer should have done the same. Why on earth would you put yourself forward, taking up a space in the squad when you personally feel that you are not ready? Why should you hold someone else back by doing that?

Jamie Vardy the ex-teammate of Drinkwater at Leicester has spoken out and stated that he did not reject or turn his back on England and he re-iterated exactly what I have said by then adding that Drinkwater wants to get fit as quick as possible to play regularly for Chelsea with the hope of making the World Cup squad next summer.

The English press is bad enough as it is without the likes of Sutton and Shearer adding to the negativity. Danny Drinkwater did the right thing if you ask me.