Smith Gutted By FA Decision

Last updated : 15 November 2003 By Kevin Markey
Smith was called up by Sven-Goran Eriksson as a replacement for Darius Vassell, who suffered a knee injury when playing for Aston Villa in a friendly in Dubai on Wednesday, then axed, after it emerged he had been arrested for an alleged bottle throwing incident.

"I spoke to Alan and unsurprisingly he has a mixture of emotions," said Smith's agent, Alex Black.

"First and foremost, he is bitterly disappointed at missing out on a chance to play for England.

"He has been out of the squad for a while - 13 months now - and he saw this as an excellent opportunity to get himself back in the frame for the European Championships.

"He is also concerned the incident during the Manchester United match has been blown out of proportion and worried people might be getting the wrong idea about that.

"Everybody was fully aware of what was going on with West Yorkshire Police and the fact he was arrested was something we knew about.

"To a certain degree, it was a formality in the procedure we had to go through and hopefully this won't affect that matter in any way.

"Alan is also pretty surprised at what a big fuss this has all become for him. He takes his football very seriously and that's what he wants to be doing.

"He doesn't want to be at the centre of incidents such as this."