Strictly Come Dancing contestant David James has hit back at the show’s judges, after he was lambasted for his performance in the most recent live show.

The former England goalkeeper found himself at the bottom of the leaderboard during Saturday night’s show, after his Paso Doble pulled in the joint-lowest score in Strictly history.

After surviving the dance-off against Olympic rower James Cracknell, David and partner Nadiya Bychkova live to fight another day, but it seems he was less than impressed with the critiques he received after his performance.

Interviewed on spin-off show It Takes Two, David said: “[The judges] are and have been at the top of their field, and as a trainee dancer you want, if someone’s going to criticise you, you want to know what the problem is.

“The ladies came out and said about the passion and all that stuff. I didn’t even realise Shirley [Ballas] had said anything good because you just hear [the negative].”

Responding to Craig Revel Horwood’s criticism that his routine was “limp, lame and lacklustre”, David said: “With regards to him, it’s a bit clichéd and not constructive.”

David was similarly critical of Bruno Tonioli, saying his critique was not specific enough for him to learn from it in the lead-up to this week’s live show.

“If [he’d been referring to] a specific part of the move, then I would have gone ‘yeah fine’,” he insisted. “That was a frustration for me, for us, that the criticism and the mark was not reflective in our opinion of the whole dance.”

Following their shaky start to the competition, David and Nadiya will be tackling a Viennese Waltz to Kiss From A Rose from the Batman Forever soundtrack, in Saturday’s Movie Week special.

Find out how they get on when Strictly Come Dancing returns on Saturday at 7.10pm on BBC One. Watch their performance from last week below: