Majestic Ledley King still waiting for Spurs to start contract talks

Tom Collomosse
19 Oct 2009

Ledley King is confident an uninterrupted run in the Tottenham team will convince the club to begin discussing a new contract with him.

King's present deal will expire at the end of the campaign and Spurs have still to open official talks with his advisors about an extension.

But despite his injury worries - the Spurs club captain has a long-term knee complaint and a hamstring problem ruled him out of three League matches this season - King scored and gave another demonstration of his importance to the team with a commanding performance in Saturday's 2-1 win at Portsmouth.

"I don't think anything's happened regarding a new contract yet," said King, whose team remain third in the Premier League, just three points adrift of leaders Manchester United.

"The main thing for me is to stay fit. I've had a couple of niggles already this season, and that's been frustrating. I just want to try to have a spell of staying fit, and I'm sure we'll start talking."

Tottenham other scorer, England striker Jermain Defoe, was forced to apologise to his team-mates after being sent off in the 61st minute.

Defoe - along with team-mates Peter Crouch and Nico Kranjcar and manager Redknapp - were facing their former club in a hostile atmosphere.

Redknapp was furious when Defoe stamped on Aaron Mokoena after scoring the eventual winner.

When asked if the forward had apologised, Redknapp said: "Yes. He's sorry for what's done. For sure. I gave him a rollicking in front of all the lads, to be fair."

Redknapp had seen his player wound up by Pompey's physical tactics in the first half and warned him to keep his cool.

"He can be a bit like that," Redknapp added. "He has to learn to curb that. He let himself down, he let us down as well. He could have cost us the game. The way he reacted, it was disappointing."