Southgate refuses to let injury blow spoil happy landing
Rashford hurts knee in final training session England arrive in Russia ready for ‘fun’, says Kane
England arrived at their World Cup base here with an injury scare to Marcus Rashford.
Just minutes after the squad touched down at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport, Gareth Southgate revealed that the in-form forward had sustained what he described as a “slight knock” in training. It is understood that Rashford hurt his knee in England’s final session at St George’s Park on Monday and will be assessed before scheduled open training at Zelenogorsk, along the coast from the team hotel.
It remains to be seen whether the 20-year-old will take part in the session or sit it out as a precautionary measure, with England’s opening Group E fixture against Tunisia in Volgograd next Monday.
“Marcus took a slight knock but nothing too serious, so we will have a look at that ahead of tomorrow’s session, which is open for everyone to see,” Southgate said. “But other than that, everyone came through fine. Across three weeks, we are really pleased to get the 23 we picked through all of the sessions.”
Rashford, following his impressive performance, and goal, in the final warm-up match against Costa Rica last Thursday, is one of those pushing hard to force his way into Southgate’s side, although he is expected to lose out to Raheem Sterling. Nevertheless, Southgate said there was competition for places, with the main selection dilemmas appearing to be between Harry Maguire and Gary Cahill in defence and Jordan Henderson or Eric Dier as the holding midfielder.
“We have another week of preparation and a lot of competition for places, as you know,” Southgate said. “But that’s good because things can change very quickly. You can pick knocks up and there’s one or two very close calls that we can see how the players are once we get into the sessions here.”
Harry Kane summed up the mood of optimism that has grown around this youthful squad. “It’s a World Cup. It’s always going to be pressure, it’s always going to be nerves and excitement,” the captain said. “For us, it’s about training hard until the game and then going out there and having some fun. I know we’re going to get great support out here. When you get into the stadium for the first time and hear all the fans, that’s when it becomes special.”
Although England are playing it down, it is a blow that they arrived with an injured player. The 58-strong party – including the 23-man squad plus management, officials and support staff – left Birmingham Airport and included Aidy Boothroyd. The England Under-21 coach, fresh from retaining the
Toulon Tournament, is not offi- cially part of Southgate’s coaching staff for the World Cup but will be here until England are knocked out. Once England touched down in St Petersburg, apparently on the same plane that took the Brazilian team to Russia on Sunday, they boarded their team bus – bearing the slogan “Send Us Victorious” – before travelling the 45 minutes to Gulf of Finland and the sleepy town of Repino, where they are based.
Meanwhile, Danny Rose is facing disappointment over his dream move to Manchester United after Jose Mourinho shelved plans to sign another full-back. The Tottenham Hotspur defender had been hoping to clinch a £50 million switch to Old Trafford after the World Cup. It is understood the United manager has suspended a move after adding full-back Diogo Dalot to his list of options at leftback, behind Ashley Young and Luke Shaw.
Sam Allardyce has insisted it should be him and not Southgate leading England. In a BBC documentary, Allardyce, who left his post after 67 days following his offer to undercover Daily Telegraph reporters to “get around” transfer rules, says: “Jealous is what I feel. Massively disappointed. That should be me there. Unfortunately, because of the circumstances that wasn’t the case.
“If a bit more time was taken, a bit more patience, I believe I should still be the England manager.”