Five England players who will be broken and battered for the World Cup | OneFootball

With absolutely nothing of interest at all happening in the Premier League or Europe, it is surely time to turn attention to being miserable about England’s prospects this summer.

We’re already quite down on this World Cup anyway for these reasons and more, with the sheer scale of the rip-off and the fact that throwing the unquestioning weight of the world’s game behind Donald Trump has somehow managed to become an even worse-looking idea than it was at the time – which was very bad indeed – only adding to that.

But we can also be down on England as well, can’t we? Because to watch Declan Rice recently is to be reminded that he is paramount importance to England – see March for further evidence – and has been flogged into submission this season already, with its most harrowing days and weeks very likely still ahead.

And he’s not the only one.

Declan Rice

He’s going to be a physical and emotional wreck, isn’t he? If this season ends the way it really looks like it might now end?

It’s not just the amount of football Rice has played – which is nevertheless loads – but the manner in which he plays. Rice is such an asset precisely because he marries consummate skill with classic English attributes of running around a lot and pashun and commitment and wearing his heart on his sleeve and performatively responding to a devastating setback by so clearly mouthing the words “it’s not done” that he might as well have just said “this does not slip” directly into a camera and had done with it.

But it is also the amount of football from a man who Arteta has seen fit to fully Saka this season. He has started all but two of Arsenal’s Premier League games this season. He missed one through injury and got to spend the first three-quarters of the Forest game back in September on the bench.

The other 31 he has started and generally finished. More or less anyway. Of those 31 starts, the earliest he’s been withdrawn has been the 76th minute.

He’s also played 10 of Arsenal’s 12 Champions League games – presumably getting himself suspended for the Kairat Almaty game as some kind of cry for help – played at least some part (albeit often brief until the semi-finals) in every round of the Carabao. He did get the FA Cup off, at least.

Played at least an hour of every England game across the September, October and November international breaks before getting a much-needed rest for the March games which only served to highlight just how vital it is that he is there this summer.

Has been playing through illness recently and still churning out 90 minutes on the regular. You do fear that by summer he simply won’t have anything left in the tank.

Elliot Anderson

Still, at least his midfield partner should be able to take up some of the sla… oh, wait, no. He’s knackered as well.

Forest did at least avoid Arsenal’s mistake of having unsuccessful but sizeable domestic cup runs, and Anderson himself has had the foresight to get himself suspended here and there in the Europa League and bag a bit of rest.

Only three outfield players have missed less Premier League football this season than Anderson, who has been given a grand total of 15 minutes’ respite across Forest’s 33 games. Two of those are James Garner and Jarrod Bowen, who have had no European commitments, and the other is the entirely ridiculous Virgil van Dijk, who somehow still insists on playing all of the minutes. But, in truth, could probably have done with a bit of time off himself at some point.

Morgan Rogers

And just 30 minutes behind Anderson on that Premier League list comes Morgan Rogers, for whom 25 of his 45 minutes off in the Premier League have come in the last month.

It’s another potential consideration in a battle he will surely lose for the starting No. 10 spot against Jude Bellingham, who is more lightly raced and remains, despite the tabloid insistence to the contrary, a better footballer.

The good news here at least is that Rogers is surely likely to be stood down from at least some Premier League football over the run-in. Villa are surely safe now in the top five and will surely turn at least some more focus to winning the Europa League. A couple of weekends where Rogers gets the luxury of mere 20-minute cameos would certainly be welcome.

Ezri Konsa

Not just England’s starting midfield that could be feeling it by summer. The starting centre-backs haven’t had much time off either.

Not sure the game Konsa missed through suspension during Villa’s now unthinkably bleak August is really going to count for much now given he’s played every single minute of all but one Premier League game since as well as a pretty hefty Thursday night workload.

Villa, like Forest, were at least shrewd enough to keep their domestic cup commitments somewhere close to the bare minimum. Sure, they did beat Spurs in the FA Cup third round but it has been incredibly hard not to beat Spurs this year.

Marc Guehi

But it’s Guehi we might be more worried about of the two. First because of status. It does feel like, while this is the starting pair now in a post-Stones-and-Maguire world, Guehi is the leader of that defence.

He is the one who has stepped up to take leadership in the group. And he’s also had upheaval at club level, with his aborted summer move to Liverpool followed by an actual move to Manchester City that has been tremendously successful but has brought with it new stresses and pressures.

And possibly a domestic treble. That’s lovely, of course, but there’s no way this season can’t have taken a toll given the on-field endeavour and off-field whirlwind.

Especially on the back of pretty much a 4000-minute season in 24/25 that would have had a couple of hundred more minutes on top had he not suffered that eye injury during the FA Cup final.