By Mark Vester

Lee Beard is hoping to patch things up with Ricky and Matthew Hatton. The two fighters dropped Beard as their trainer after he agreed to work with former champion Joan Guzman for the rematch with Ali Funeka on March 27. Beard spoke with Sky Sports and said he has more then enough time to continue training Matthew and said there were no problems on his end.

"I've got a lot of time for Matthew, he's a great guy and a friend and I'd train Matthew today," sais Beard. "He's performing really well now and he's really peaking. He's better against better opposition but whether he'll get the fights that he needs is another question. Not one percent of me has got a problem with Matthew, I know I've done nothing wrong, and I know he's done nothing wrong. The whole thing has been blown out of proportion."

Beard says the entire situation with the Hattons is a huge misunderstanding.

"I came back to train Matthew for his fight in Stoke last week [of January]. I got a call only a few days before from Guzman asking me to train him as he had been given a date of April 3 by Golden Boy for the rematch with Funeka and could I start training him, as it was in eight weeks' time.

"[Matthew] didn't need me at that time, he was already in great shape and sparring eight rounds a day, my assistant was there to help out with him. If he was fighting anybody that was a risk I wouldn't have thought about going. So everything was alright.

"Next thing I know I was reading that I had moved over there. It's just ridiculous and blown out of all proportion. The first week over there in New York I was just reading so many things, it was so frustrating. I was coming back in two weeks!"

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