It has been a strange start to the 2017 / 2018 season for Danny Drinkwater.
Signed from Leicester City in the summer, the midfielder has rarely featured after struggling with a calf injury.
During the recent international break, it appears that the England boss, seeing his squad depleted by injuries tried to call up 27-year-old Drinkwater.
Drinkwater, aware that he hadn`t featured much this season, declined the invitation, no doubt spelling out his reasons.
Since then, Danny has found his commitment to the national cause questioned, in our opinion, unfairly.
At his pre-match press conference, ahead of the trip to take on West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns, Antonio Conte tried to clarify the situation, remarking to the assembled journalists about the midfielder and the need for better communication lines between club bosses and those who run the international sides, commenting,
‘Sometimes there is a way, which is very easy, to try to call the coach before and to ask ‘is it ok, I can do this? Is this player good or does he have a problem? Is he tired or not?`
‘I am telling you this because I was coach for the national team. In this way you can avoid a misunderstanding because about Drinkwater it was a misunderstanding.
“He was injured and also he wasn’t really 100 per cent fit to go with the national team.
‘If someone asks me I can explain and if the coach wants to take the same decision it is ok, but it is important to have more relationship between the coach and the coach of the national team.”
Hopefully, it`ll all turn out to be a storm in a tea-cup and Drinkwater`s long-term international prospects have not been damaged.
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