LIVERPOOL boss Roy Hodgson has slammed Hull City for their treatment of Spanish defender Daniel Ayala.
Earlier this month the Championship outfit turned down the Reds’ request for Ayala to return early from his loan spell with the Tigers so he could recover from a hamstring injury and then provide cover for the injured Jamie Carragher.
However, Hull insisted the 20-year-old stayed put, Ayala’s problem worsened and he has since returned to Melwood facing another month on the sidelines.
“We’re very disappointed in Hull City,” Hodgson said.
“I was disappointed to read that he’s returned to his parent club through injury, when in fact he has returned because we’re not prepared to loan him out to Hull any more.
“We wanted to bring him back for the last three weeks of 2010 to get him fit, because he wasn’t fit there, and to cover Jamie Carragher.
“Hull totally refused and said ‘no, under the loan agreement he’s here until January 1 and we’re not prepared to allow him to go back’.
“We then said ‘in that case you can forget about loaning him in January’. We’d done them a great favour loaning him to them for so long and we couldn’t believe that when we were in need of him, they said no.
“We wanted him here at least until such time that he got fit from his hamstring injury, which we thought would be the middle of December, but they refused that as well and insisted he went back there. And then with the treatment he has been given there his injury has now been aggravated.
“Our fitness people were under the impression when he was here that they’d have him fit for about December 15/16. Now he won’t be fit until the end of January because his injury has been exacerbated by going back to Hull City.”
Ayala, who is undergoing treatment at Melwood, could be loaned out to another club when he’s fully fit.
Hodgson added: “It will depend very much upon how our situation looks at centre-back.
“There is a possibility that if we didn’t think we needed him we’d loan him out again – but certainly not to Hull City.”
