England chaos as Rashford and Phillips delay arrivals due to personal reasons after FIVE stars withdraw from squad

5 months ago 34

MARCUS RASHFORD and Kalvin Phillips will link up with the England squad late due to “personal matters”.

The Three Lions face Malta at Wembley on Friday night before taking on North Macedonia away on Monday.

Marcus Rashford will join up with his England team-mates later in the week[/caption]

Kalvin Phillips is in the England squad after hardly featuring for Man City[/caption]

But both stars are going to join their international team-mates later on this week.

The FA confirmed the pair’s delay at the same time that Jude Bellingham and Levi Colwill pulled out of the squad, taking the number of withdrawals from the original squad to five.

Both youngsters were named in Gareth Southgate‘s 26-man group and arrived at St George’s Park on Monday.

But after assessments from the England medical teams on their injuries, they are heading back to Real Madrid and Chelsea respectively.

Bellingham, 20, has missed his club’s last two games with a shoulder injury.

While Colwill was absent from Chelsea’s 4-4 draw with Manchester City, also due to a shoulder issue.

Boss Gareth Southgate had already been hit with a trio of withdrawals.

James Maddison, Lewis Dunk and Callum Wilson will all miss the matches against Malta and North Macedonia due to injury.

Harry Maguire, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Conor Gallagher did not take part in training with the rest of the team this morning.

The trio instead completed individual training programmes indoors.

Chelsea captain Reece James asked not to be included in the squad, having only recently returned from a three-month injury layoff.

Southgate subsequently fired him a warning, saying: “I was hoping to call up Reece.

“He doesn’t feel he is quite ready. I understand that. He’s had a long path back from a number of injuries.

“So he’s a little bit cautious in that respect but I can understand why.

“There is a lot of competition at full-back and that’s the risk. He’s only got one more squad before the Euros.

“So he knows that. We’ve got belief in what he can do.”

Despite his red-hot form for Chelsea, there is still no place for Raheem Sterling.

England have already qualified for Euro 2024 going into these final two matches.

But boss Southgate is looking forward to getting another look at his team as they continue their preparations for next summer.

Jude Bellingham reported for England duty before having to pull out[/caption]