Luckless Lallana hurt again
ADAM LALLANA’S England misery continued yesterday when he was sent home from Gareth Southgate’s preparation camp at St George’s Park after picking up a groin strain.
The Liverpool man fought back from injury at the end of last season but failed to demonstrate his fitness sufficiently to persuade Southgate to take a risk in Russia.
Now Southgate has had to rule him out of the games against Spain and Switzerland.
“He has just picked up a muscular injury,” said the England boss. “It was quite close to the beginning of training so it is the worst thing as far as we are concerned, because you never want to send players back injured.
“It has to be assessed whether it is serious, it is still to be scanned properly. But he is out of our two games. He is having a really difficult run and you review what you might have been able to do differently, but this was just out of the blue. I am really disappointed for him. He has been missing so much football.”
Lallana is the second player to withdraw after Raheem Sterling suffered a back injury but Southgate’s only reinforcement has been to bolster his goalkeeper options, with Marcus Bettinelli of Fulham being given his first call-up, joining Jordan Pickford, Jack Butland and Alex McCarthy – although Southgate pointed out his inclusion is for training only.
“Marcus is very comfortable with the ball at his feet and fits that prototype of keeper and there is no point in us calling up a senior goalkeeper who has worked with us in the past just for training,” he said.