Mendieta denies slating Middlesbrough culture

Gaizka Mendieta has denied slamming his time at Middlesbrough in the Spanish press.

He says he did the interview with Spanish paper El Mundo and it was then picked up and repeated in the national press over here.

Mendieta, who has settled in Yarm after retiring, told the Evening Gazette: “I want to apologise for what has been written, supposedly in my name.

“I never said that and I am upset that the Spanish journalist has twisted it to sound like I did. It’s very annoying.”

The story claimed that Mendieta witnessed a drinking culture at first hand.

He said: “It’s not what I said at all. What I told the reporter was that I heard from team-mates and others that this was the sort of thing that had happened in the past.

“But I certainly never saw it when I was at Middlesbrough. Things like that didn’t happen when I was at Middlesbrough. I never saw any sign of a drinking culture there.

“Everything was always very professional under both Steve McClaren and Gareth Southgate.”