UK Edition
Marcus Rashford suffers injury in final England training session before flight to World Cup
England arrived at their World Cup base in Repino 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 training 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 which is again, 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 to face Tunisia 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 either 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.”
Captain Harry Kane summed up the mood of optimism that has grown around this youthful England squad. “It’s a World Cup. It’s always going to be pressure, it’s always going to be nerves and excitement,” Kane 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 down the Rashford injury it is a blow that they arrived with an injured player. The 58-strong England party - including the 23-man squad plus management team, officials and support staff - set off from Birmingham Airport and included Aidy Boothroyd.
The England Under-21 coach, fresh from retaining the Toulon Tournament, is not officially part of Southgate’s coaching staff for the World Cup but will be there until England are knocked out. The Football Association say it is part of the plan for coaches across all the age groups to work together.
England’s Boeing 757-23N touched down in St Petersburg with the players boarding their team bus - with the slogan “Send Us Victorious” before travelling the 45 minutes to Gulf of Finland and the sleepy town - more a village - of Repino where Southgate has chosen to base them at the ForRestMix Hotel.
“We like the town. We like St Petersburg and we are hopeful that the players and their families will have the opportunity to go into St Petersburg when we are not working,” Southgate said. “We like the fact that we could take the hotel just for ourselves. That’s good for the balance of working but also the players being able to relax and have some time to themselves. We’re really pleased with the base.”