Angry Oggy lashes out: “I am amazed and embittered”

Furious Angelo Ogbonna has slammed Italian boss Roberto Mancini after being snubbed and excluded from the national team.

The 33 year old Hammers defender had been called up in March before being injured and forced to withdraw.

Fit again and rightly expecting a call up for the summer internationals he has instead been left on the sidelines and could hardly be more angry.

Oggy is one of the calmest characters within the Hammers squad and to hear him hit out so loudly and publicly is a huge surprise.

But he is justified having enjoyed perhaps his best season in a Hammers shirt and recovering in time to step straight into the Italian squad until Mancini’s bizarre decision.’

Oggy told Fantacalcio, in a quote translated by Hammers News:  “The coach ignored me, there is no meritocracy (being selected according to merit),” Ogbonna fumed.

“It was my best season, after 30 a defender enters his best season. I am amazed and embittered.

“In sport, meritocracy must prevail and this time in my opinion it did not prevail.”

It’s very easy to sympathise with our central defender whose injury was responsible  part have been responsible for us not making the Champions League.

He had been quite brilliant ahead of that and was back in his best form by the end of the season and fully deserving as a call-up to the squad.

Quite what was going on in Mancini’s head is a mystery – as has sometimes been the case in the past.