Batty held back by fitness problem

LEEDS manager Terry Venables claims it is David Batty’s lack of fitness which has seen the midfielder frozen out of the first-team picture at Elland Road this season.

Batty claims otherwise and is baffled by Venables’s decision to not include him, even in the reserves, as was the case on Monday night when he was not part of the second-string squad which beat Newcastle 4-2 at Gateshead.

Batty, whose contract does not expire until the summer of 2004 and who is earning £25,000 a week at Elland Road, says he is fit and ready to play for the club, where he is idolised by fans who chanted his name during Sunday’s defeat at Blackburn.