Tottenham captain King blasts rumours he might have to retire because of injury

The England defender will miss the rest of the season as he bids to make a full recovery from his knee injury and has only made ten appearances all season.

But King, who did play in the Carling Cup final victory over Chelsea, insists he will make a full recovery from all his injury problems.

"I've read a lot of stories about my situation over the last few weeks but I honestly believe that when I do finally get it all right there won't be any more problems in the future," King told Sport magazine.

"It's just talk. I've heard it but I have no idea where it came from. It's never nice to read stuff like that about yourself but I don't feel like I have to prove anything to anyone, all I want to do is play football. I'm not retiring, let's put it that way.

"As a player when you've been out for six months what you really need are matches in order to get back to full fitness and consistency, so it's been difficult playing one game and then missing out in the next three. I'm still searching for that fitness because I'm not playing week in week out but we had important games that I really wanted to play in and I felt that if I could get myself right for certain games it would help the team.

"I'm not sure exactly when I'll be back playing twice a week again. Now my main aim is to prepare myself for next season and do everything possible to ensure that I don't have any problems next year."

King also admitted he is desperate to see striker Dimitar Berbatov stay at the club.

"He's a top player, one of the best about at the moment," King added.

"It goes without saying that you don't want to lose your top players and I think us having just won a trophy might just give him the belief that we might be going places. I think the way he plays sometimes gets misconstrued as sulking, but that's just him. He's a quiet player but he's very passionate about his football.

"I've played with some very good players over the years but I think his touch is possibly the best I've seen. The way he pulls the ball down out of the air is incredible. You can play him a bad ball and he can make it look good. I'm sure the club will be doing everything they can to keep hold of him."