Marcus Rashford has has been left sweating on his fitness for the opening game of England’s World Cup campaign after suffering a knee injury.
Gareth Southgate arrived in Russia with his squad on Tuesday and revealed that the Manchester United striker who excelled in their final warm-up game against Costa Rica at Elland Rod last week had taken a knock in Monday’s private practice match.
The England manager said the medical staff are confident the injury ‘is not too serious’, suggesting he should be available for the Group G clash with Tunisia on Monday.
ashford will be assessed before a decision is made on whether he can participate in the first training session here in Repino on Wednesday.
But it remains a concern for Southgate when Rashford was pushing Raheem Sterling for a place in the starting line-up, even though the Manchester City forward remains the favourite to partner Harry Kane in the England attack.
Rashford was injured at St George’s Park in what was the final training session on UK soil before the squad left for Russia on Tuesday.
Southgate said: ‘Marcus took a slight knock but nothing too serious.
‘We’ll have a look at that ahead of tomorrow’s session, which is open for everyone to see. But other than that everybody came through fine which, across three weeks, we’ve been really pleased to get the 23 we picked through all of the sessions.’
When asked if he knew his starting XI for the opening game, Southgate replied: ‘If we were playing tomorrow I probably do, yeah, but we have another week of preparation and we have a lot of competition for places and 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 players are once we get into the sessions here.
He also revealed he would give his players the freedom to explore St Petersburg, which is an hour’s journey from their base.
‘We’re hopeful that players and their families will have the opportunity to go into St Petersburg when we’re not working. We like the fact that we can take the hotel just for ourselves – that’s good for the balance of working but also players being able to relax, have some time for themselves. We’re really pleased with the base and we’re looking forward to being able to meet the community there a bit more.’
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