Planet Swans ArchivesShelvey goes into the weekend having created more chances in the Premier League this season than any other midfielder and will be hoping that the statistic will be enough to force himself into the England reckoning as they bid to qualify for Euro 2016 over the course of the next week or so.
It would be perfect timing for any player to make the national squad at the moment with just a few qualifiers left before the finals that will take place in France next summer and it is clear that Shelvey wants to be part of the party.
He has never started for England and that is something that he wants to correct and on current form it is difficult to name too many players ahead of him, if indeed there are any at all.
“I want this,” he says. “It is brilliant going away, playing with people like Wayne Rooney in training. I have one cap but haven’t started an England game yet – I just want to start one because if I do I know I will do myself justice.”
Shelvey looked in trouble at Swansea around the turn of the year after being criticised in the press by Garry Monk ahead of a trip to his former club Liverpool. And a lucklustre performance in that game followed by a four match suspension and it looked like the end of the road for Shelvey as far as Swansea were concerned.
However, in another instance of how quick things can change in football, Shelvey got his head down, did the work that Monk had asked of him and he is now as close as anyone is at Swansea to being indispensable in the team.
“The comments came out in the press the Monday of the Liverpool game (on December 28),’ Shelvey adds.
“We were in the hotel in Liverpool and I was a bit shocked in terms of it being out as he had not said anything to me that it would be in the press. I thought he would pull me aside, and say, ‘I’ve said something’, but he didn’t. I don’t blame him as he has benefited from doing it and so has the team and so have I. I can’t fault him.
‘I had a meeting with him at the start of this season with my dad and my agent and he apologised for it coming out in the press before he told me it was. He said, “I did it to see if you had any balls about you and he said fair play, you have”. Luckily I’ve shown I have got the balls that he asked for.”
And that is luckily for Swansea as well as we finally get the best out of Jonjo and long may that continue
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