VIRUS CRISIS
England squad is set to be hit by late withdrawals
GARETH SOUTHGATE last night called up Wolves’ Conor Coady and Arsenal’s Ainsley Maitland-Niles to the England squad for the first time as he braces himself for a raft of coronavirus-related withdrawals when the squad meets up at St George’s Park tomorrow.
Mason Mount and Tammy Abraham have been isolating and missed Chelsea training this week but should be available for the Nations League clash in Iceland next weekend followed by a midweek game in Denmark.
However, the FA fear others may have to pull out, with several players testing positive or having been forced to go into quarantine after being in contact with infected friends on returning from holiday hotspots.
Maitland-Niles’ call up on his 23rd birthday came after a man-of-the match performance in Arsenal’s
Community Shield win over Liverpool. Coady, 27, is a replacement for Manchester United centre half Harry Maguire, who was initially named in the squad and then withdrawn when a court in Greece found him guilty of assault, resisting arrest and bribery after an altercation on holiday in Mykonos.
The Mail on Sunday understands that Maguire will be picked for the next England squad in October after the court granted him leave to appeal the verdict, which restarts the legal process.
As such, he remains innocent in the eyes of Greek law at present and it is understood that Southgate and the FA have reassured Maguire he will be able to represent England while his appeal is prepared.
Given the furore surrounding Maguire, Southgate decided not to bring him back into the squad immediately and Maguire is understood to be grateful for the support of the England manager.
Although the game in Iceland is likely to be far from ideal, Southgate insists he will not rest his players despite the Premier League season starting next weekend and there being no break for international players who will be playing twice a week until the end of the European Championship next July in order to make up the time lost to the lockdown.
The England manager points out that the pressure to ensure players do not get over-played always falls on international managers.
Southgate said: ‘We face a hugely challenging season for every club manager and every international manager and it does always seem that when the call to rest the players comes — and I know they are the clubs’ players — it always lands internationally. And it seems to land strongly on England rather than all the other countries, who just play them all anyway.
‘We are competing with the Portuguese, the French, the Spanish, the Italians, the Belgians, who just pick their strongest teams and have done this month.
‘My job is to win games for my country and I have to pick the strongest squads. Within that I’ve got to be sensible, with weeks like this, where training schedules are so varied that we’ve got to individualise their physical training and make sure we’re getting the right level of work in and try to manage the minutes of the squad if people need managing.
‘But we have to work with the players as regularly as we can. We get to see them four times between now and the European Championship and when we get to the Euros we’ll probably have a week where they need to rest and then a twoweek preparation, so it will be a shorter time than we’ve ever had.’