I skipped England tournament to go on holiday to Dubai with my girlfriend.. but it wasn’t my fault

GABBY AGBONLAHOR has revealed that he skipped an England tournament as he went on holiday to Dubai with his girlfriend.

The now-retired striker, 36, had just completed his first season in the Premier League with Aston Villa and was in desperate need of a rest.

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Gabriel Agbonlahor once missed an England Under-21s tournament[/caption]

Daniel Jones - The Sun

Because he went on holiday to Dubai[/caption]

Agbonlahor agreed with Villa boss Martin O’Neill that he did not need to go to an England Under 21 tournament as he had become a regular in the team.

His performances during his breakout 2006/07 campaign saw him net 10 goals.

This caught the attention of England and it was thought that the-now talkSPORT pundit would play in the European Championships in the Netherlands during the summer.

However, Agbonlahor claims that O’Neill forgot to tell the Under-21s coach Stuart Pearce about the decision.

Agbonlahor told talkSPORT: “I’d just played my first full season in the Premier League, 19 years of age, nearly 20 and Martin O’Neill agreed with me that having played nearly every game, 40-something games in total I don’t need to go to this tournament.

“I need to rest and have a holiday straight away.

“But he didn’t tell Stuart Pearce and the under-21s, he forgot to tell them.

“So I went to Dubai with my girlfriend at the time, went on a nice little break and I’m getting messages off friends saying ‘your on Sky Sports News saying Gabby’s gone AWOL’ and I was like ‘what do you mean AWOL? The gaffer said I don’t need to go to the under-21s tournament’.”

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Having made the news for his trip, Agbonlahor was able to calm the situation down once he had returned home from his holiday.

He added: “At that time as well there were better strikers that were going to play in front of me in the under-21s, so it was just a miscommunication.

“I came home and there were cars with cameras parked by the house and it was just a bit of a miscommunication between Martin O’Neill and England so not my fault.

“I was just taking a break after a hard season, a lot of games.”

The former Villa forward earned three caps for his country during his 13-year career.

It was not the only time Agbonlahor had issues with the Three Lions as he was fined £20,000 after flying to Miami having missed out on a call-up.