Dawson happy to delay holiday for England

Tottenham defender Michael Dawson says he was delighted to have to ditch his holiday plans after receiving a dramatic call-up to England’s World Cup squad.

Dawson was in the process of arranging a sunshine break on Friday when he took a call from the Football Association telling him that England captain Rio Ferdinand would miss the tournament with a knee injury sustained in training.

Just four days after being dumped by Fabio Capello when the England coach named his 23-man squad for the finals, Dawson was back in the fold as the FA offical told him a car was on the way to pick him up and take him to the airport for a flight to South Africa.

“It’s a crazy game and things can change in a split second,” Dawson told Tottenham’s website.

“One minute I’m trying to arrange my holiday, then I get a call asking if I was on holiday because Rio had pulled out of training.

“I said ‘no’ and then I was just waiting by the phone before getting a call saying I would be picked up in an hour. It’s been a crazy day.”

Dawson, who trained with his England team-mates just hours after arriving in Rustenburg on Saturday, is still waiting for his international debut.

He is likely to be behind Ledley King and Jamie Carragher in the battle to replace Ferdinand as John Terry’s partner, but he is determined to make his mark at the World Cup.

“I’ve not had time to think about it but I’ve had call after call with people wishing me good luck,” he said.

“I know all the lads through having been with them for two weeks so I’ll just be going out there and training as normal.

“I was planning to watch the first game of the tournament with my friends and family, but now I’m going to be there for real.

“I’ll be going out there still having not yet won a senior cap, so what better place to get one if that was to happen? But I’ll just go there and train like I do every day at Spurs and we’ll have to see what happens.”

Meanwhile, England midfielder Frank Lampard admitted he feared the worst as soon as he saw Ferdinand crumple to the turf after his injury.

“He’s very down,” Lampard said of Ferdinand. “It’s a huge competition, the biggest competition. It made me feel a bit sick in the stomach so I can’t imagine how he feels.

“I was fearful for him because you could see the pain of the fall but also there was an element of fear.

“We all understand that. We’ve all had moments during our club careers as well where there’s big games coming up and you feel you might have done something to put you out of that game.

“I understood straight away that it was potentially a bad one and then it was fingers crossed for the scan and obviously it turned out to be bad.”

Lampard, who becomes vice-captain as Steven Gerrard takes over the captain’s role, admits the whole England camp are disappointed to lose such an important player.

“We have to keep batting on, we have to be very focused. There’s nothing wrong with being disappointed. That’s normal. But when we trained on Saturday we trained at full pelt,” said the Chelsea star.

“Dawson’s turned up now and he’s a lad who fully deserves to get that kind of call-up for the player he is and the season he’s had. So we have to just focus.

“Yes, we’ve lost a big player and big leader in our team but we’ve got to get together.

“I think he (Gerrard) will do the job he does at Liverpool. Which he has done fantastically for years. It’ll mean everything to him, the England captaincy.

“Steven’s got that very quiet way about him off the pitch and everyone respects him for that. He’s a player to look up to and that’s what a captain’s all about.”