Fergie going no where

The Newcastle United defender, who was in Beaglehole’s European qualifying squad that lost 2-0 to Serbia yesterday (Tuesday), failed to respond on a number of occasions after former boss Nigel Worthington called him up for the senior side.

“I’ve no reason to believe he wasn’t happy with NI - he never ‘left’ us as far as I’m concerned,” said Beaglehole.

“He never said to me he didn’t want to play for Northern Ireland.”

There were strong rumours the Waterside man intended to follow the likes of Darron Gibson, Shane Duffy and most recently former Derry City youngster James McClean and take advantage of a FIFA ruling by pledging himself to the Republic.

However, it later emerged that a personality clash with Worthington was a more likely reason for his absence.

In fact the Leicester City coach, insists he has never had a problem with the Newcastle starlet.

“He and I had a conversation in the summer and he said he didn’t want to be picked for an under-21 match against the Faroe Islands.

“He had a lot going on - he’d had a good season at Newcastle and there was a lot of hype about him going to the Republic. People read a lot into that and made comments and assumptions that weren’t true.

“We understood his reasons and respected his reasons, but he hasn’t come back to us because he’d never gone.”