Al Wakrah: (Web Desk) – England midfielder Kalvin Phillips’s World Cup debut remained on hold with Declan Rice back in training on today and ready for the Three Lions quarter-final showdown with France on Saturday. After playing every match at Euro 2020, helping England to the final where they lost to Italy on penalties, Phillips was expected to play a defensive midfield role at the World Cup but has yet to get off the bench after a long-term shoulder injury.
As per details despite the injury, manager Gareth Southgate included Phillips on his Qatar squad and the 27-year-old Manchester City midfielder has worked hard to regain his fitness, pronouncing he ready to go if called on.
According to the source, Kalvin Philips said “Yeah (I am ready) but I believe Dec is fit, he is back in training and he is fine, If something goes wrong then I will be there and I’ll do my best to be fit for 90 minutes. I want to play as many minutes as possible. The three midfielders that have been playing have been doing an unbelievable job. I would choose myself to play in the game but they have done so well so far and they have got results. England was massively excited to hear that forward Raheem Sterling would rejoin the squad in time for their clash with France at the weekend.”
Meanwhile Phillips is eager to see some action he conceded that getting on the pitch ahead of Jordan Henderson, Jude Bellingham and Rice, who have starred in the midfield, would be tough. The trio will have their hands full against a France side led by the rampaging Kylian Mbappe.
“Anyone who gets called upon would be ready for the challenge and be ready to do everything to help the team be successful. We have to think about how to stop him (Mbappe) and (Olivier) Giroud and (Antoine) Griezmann. We have been working on tactics to stop the whole team.”
Sterling had returned home to England to be with his family following a robbery at his residence and did not play in their 3-0 win over Senegal in the last 16.
As per details Phillips said “A massive lift, He is an amazing player and obviously had to go home to deal with everything that is going on and we just hope everything is alright and he can rejoin us and play a big part in the next game. It isn’t a nice feeling when you are so far away from home and you have got family at home. There isn’t much we can do about it but Raheem feels good enough now to join back up with us and we are very happy about that.”
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