Henderson hopeful of shaking off injury
England’s lucky charm Jordan Henderson is confident of shaking off a tight hamstring in time to play in Wednesday night’s World Cup semi-final against Croatia.
And Jamie Vardy has declared himself fully fit for the match in Moscow after overcoming a groin problem that had threatened to rule him out.
Henderson and Vardy, along with some of England’s fatigued players, will continue to be assessed this week but manager Gareth Southgate is hoping to have a full squad to pick from.
Jordan Pickford hurt a thumb while making a string of superb saves in the quarter-final success over Sweden, but recovered quickly and will face Croatia.
Henderson was replaced by Eric Dier in the 85th minute of the victory against Sweden in Samara as a precaution, but is expected to be fit for the semi-final. His availability will be key if England are to progress to the final.
The Liverpool midfielder has been instrumental in Russia and he has not ended on the losing side in any of his past 30 international appearances, which is a record.
“We’ll just have to assess people as we go,” said Southgate. “Hendo was one who was feeling tightness in his hamstring, which was why we made the change.
“But of course you get an accumulation of fatigue through a tournament and that’s why we took the decision we did against Belgium more than anything.”
On his fitness, Henderson added: “I was just a little bit tight before the game, so towards the last 20 minutes I just overstretched and I felt it a little bit. But it doesn’t feel too bad, so hopefully it’ll be fine.”
Vardy was a substitute against Sweden and, asked how his groin was, he said: “Everything is fine.”
Henderson was keen to stress how important Southgate’s vision has been. “That was one of the biggest things that the gaffer wanted to bring when he came in, to have an identity of the team and how we wanted to play,” said Henderson.
“That was an open conversation from early on in terms of how the players wanted to play and how he wanted to play. We were on the same hymn sheet from the off.”