Saturday, November 15, 2014

Baines out of England squad with injury

England have only one fit left-back for Saturday's 2016 European Championship qualifier at home to Slovenia after the Football Association announced Leighton Baines's withdrawal due to injury on Friday.
The Everton full-back succumbed to a hamstring injury in training and follows Manchester United midfielder Michael Carrick and Tottenham Hotspur winger Andros Townsend in pulling out of manager Roy Hodgson's squad.
Hodgson's decision to rest Luke Shaw for Saturday's game means that Kieran Gibbs will be England's only available left-back at Wembley, but Shaw will return to contention for Tuesday's friendly with Scotland in Glasgow.
"We'd had the warm-up, we'd had the passing work and were just about to go into a game situation, which had only just begun when he (Baines) felt his hamstring," Hodgson told a press conference at the England team hotel in Watford.
"Immediately he needed to stop the training because he's an experienced player and obviously realised something wasn't right.
"I can't tell you the extent. We will have to wait until the doctors at Everton do their analysis or their research into the injury, but it did mean he was out of the question for tomorrow (Saturday)."
Explaining his decision to omit United left-back Shaw from the squad to face Slovenia, Hodgson added: "Kieran Gibbs is the one to come in as unfortunately we had given our squad at 11 o'clock (1100 GMT), as we are duty-bound to do, to Uefa.
"Because there were three left backs, I left him (Shaw) out of the 23 as we had 24 players at the time. As it turns out, now we can't use him."
Arsenal defender Gibbs was not included in Hodgson's squad for this year's World Cup in Brazil but has worked his way back into international contention after impressing for his club this season.
He has won four England caps, but only made his first competitive start in last month's 5-0 thrashing of minnows San Marino.
Hodgson had expressed concerns about the state of the Wembley playing surface after it hosted an American football game last weekend, but he said that assistant coach Gary Neville had reassured him about the condition of the pitch.
"Gary has been to see the pitch, so we have a pretty clear update of how it is," he said.
"I've got to say his update was perhaps not as critical as some of the other reports I've read, but as far as I'm concerned, we're ready for the game and we will be ready for the game on whatever surface we play it."
England are bidding to continue their 100 percent record in qualifying, having won their three Group E matches to date.
West Ham United midfielder Stewart Downing missed training on Friday, but he is expected to be fit for the game.

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