Steven Gerrard and Roy Hodgson have reacted furiously to assertions from Harry Redknapp that players at Tottenham Hotspur would ask him to withdraw them from senior England duty while he was in charge at White Hart Lane because they did not “need the aggro” of playing for their country.

The England manager and his captain urged Redknapp to identify the players to whom he was referring and “embarrass” them in public as the national side sift through the wreckage of their shortest World Cup campaign in 60 years. Gerrard, who will be rested and replaced as captain by Frank Lampard for Tuesday’s last group game against Costa Rica in Belo Horizonte, has been asked to stay on as skipper by Hodgson going into the qualification campaign for Euro 2016 but intends to take his time before making a decision on his future .

Although the team’s final duties at their Urca training base were conducted in a sombre mood, Gerrard in particular became animated when Redknapp’s comments questioning modern-day players’ commitment to the England setup were raised. The Queens Park Rangers manager, who had been a serious contender to succeed Fabio Capello two years ago before the Football Association chose Hodgson, had recalled incidents over his four-year spell at Spurs.

“I can tell you when I was at Tottenham, when full internationals came around, there were two or three players who did not want to play for England,” he told BBC 5 Live. “They would come to me 10 days before the game and say: ‘Gaffer, get me out of that game, I don’t want to play in that game.’

“That was how it was. I’d say: ‘You’re playing for your country, you should want to play.’ [They would say]: ‘Nah, my girlfriend is having a baby in four weeks, I don’t want to play’, and that is the truth, so it makes you wonder. And I think it’s only going to get worse. You see the stick the England players get and they come home, they’re earning fantastic money at their clubs, they’re all playing in the Champions League. They think: ‘Do we need the aggro?”’

There were 12 England players who worked under Redknapp at Spurs – Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe, Aaron Lennon, Darren Bent, Scott Parker, David Bentley, Jermaine Jenas, Michael Dawson, Tom Huddlestone, Jonathan Woodgate, Ledley King and Kyle Walker – though the QPR manager’s apparent reluctance to identify those to whom he was referring riled Gerrard.

“I tell you what, I’d be interested to find out who those players are,” he said. “If Harry is making a comment like that, he should name them and embarrass them. Hand on heart, no one in this group wants to go home. No one has said to me they don’t like playing for England or that they don’t want to be here. If [what Redknapp says is] the case, it’s disgusting. For me, if a player doesn’t want to be here, he doesn’t deserve to be at a World Cup.

“But should Harry not name them? ‘They’ didn’t want to play for England. Who? Name them. We need names. Is it Aaron Lennon, Kyle Walker, Andros Townsend? I don’t know who he means. Does he mean five years ago? Or 10 years ago?” Hodgson interjected at this stage to insist it could not have been Defoe. “I’ve spoken to Jermain Defoe and he’s devastated [not to be in Brazil],” said Gerrard. “Harry Redknapp is a fantastic coach and a big character in the game, so for him to make a comment like that’s a big question in this room, but we need names. We need names or we can’t agree or disagree. But it’s not [been the case] here. I can guarantee 100% it’s not here.”

When it was put to Gerrard that one high-profile member of the England Under-21s had been reluctant to participate in last summer’s junior European Championships in Israel, he added: “Well, he should be embarrassed, if there is one player. But when you go down into the younger age groups, they’re young lads. They might not want to be away from their families.

“But when you become a man and you’re picked to play for England at this level and you find any excuse not to be here, you don’t deserve to be here. If you get a one-off situation where a player has a bad experience or falls out with a manager and doesn’t enjoy it, you can possibly understand it. But if Harry is talking about a group of players at one club who don’t want to be involved in the England setup? Well, if he names them, we can come back to that …”

Hodgson, who retains the full backing of the FA despite the team’s toils in Brazil, insisted there was a greater appetite for players to represent their country now than two years ago when he took up the reins in the wake of Capello’s resignation. “In the two years I’ve been here, I’ve seen a greater interest in playing for England, so Harry’s comments come as a bit of a surprise, quite frankly,” he said.

“So if you are going to make global comments like that, it’s a bit dangerous. You have to be prepared to say: ‘This player came to me and said …’ I could imagine ‘a player’ with an educated guess, but I don’t think I could name many Tottenham players, and certainly [not] among the ones I’ve worked with [to whom Redknapp’s words might apply].”