Hodgson takes Tigers bite

Ayala: Suffered injury

Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson has hit out at Hull City in a row over injured defender Daniel Ayala.

The Spanish centre-back was due to remain at the KC Stadium until the end of the year after extending an initial one-month emergency loan deal.

But the Reds wanted to recall him for the last three weeks of the year after he suffered a hamstring injury.

Hodgson claims the Tigers refused and the defender's injury got worse, leaving the Liverpool boss to vow he will not be returning to the KC Stadium.

He told the club's official website: "We're very disappointed in Hull City. I was disappointed to read that he's returned to his parent club through injury, when in fact he has returned because we're not prepared to loan him out to Hull anymore.

"We wanted to bring him back for the last three weeks of 2010 to get him fit, because he wasn't fit there, and to cover Jamie Carragher.

"Hull totally refused and said, 'No, under the loan agreement he's here until January 1 and we're not prepared to allow him to go back'.

"We then said, 'In that case you can forget about loaning him in January'. We'd done them a great favour loaning him to them for so long and we couldn't believe that when we were in need of him, they said 'No'.

"Our fitness people were under the impression when he was here that they'd have him fit for about the 15th or 16th of December - now he won't be fit until the end of January because his injury has been exacerbated by going back to Hull City."

After his September switch, the 20-year-old made 12 appearances in the Championship for the Tigers, scoring once.