England rocked by ‘alarming’ hat-trick of setbacks on eve of Croatia opener | OneFootball

It will be an achievement if England are able to recover in time for their World Cup opener against Croatia after more ‘alarming’ incidents.

The Three Lions are scheduled to kick off their campaign soon, with Thomas Tuchel knowing that they must ‘make the semi-finals at least or he has failed’.

But their preparations have been sub-optimal, even leading to some Arsenal ‘concerns’.

Dirty Harry

‘THOMAS TUCHEL told Harry Maguire he wouldn’t be going to the World Cup over FACETIME’ – Tom Coley, The Sun.

Over WHAT?! That’s absolutely preposterous. It should have been either a phone call, a Teams call, a house visit or a quick DM. But a f**king FACETIME? Sack Tuchel now.

Also a big fan of Maguire saying “I think he said that he’s gone with the four lads that he got through the qualifying in the autumn camps where he felt like they did well during those six games,” before immediately adding: “But he did say that he can’t really give me an excuse.”

That…that was the excusereason, fella.

Lip service

By the way, what is the biggest giveaway that England play their first game at a major tournament tomorrow?

This Sun website headline to Martin Lipton’s column, of course:

Masterful work, especially the morning after actual European champions and one of the pre-World Cup favourites Spain showed that this sh*t isn’t actually all that easy.

Sak it off

Bukayo Saka spoke candidly about his physical condition on Monday, with Thomas Tuchel having recently admitted “it is very unlikely he starts and finishes all the matches” at the World Cup.

The bloke has started and finished one match for club or country since mid-March, so it wasn’t a particularly stunning revelation to anyone paying attention.

Saka nevertheless declared himself “ready to go” and “happy to take the gamble” on his fitness for England.

What he also apparently did, according to the Daily Express website, was this:

It’s a massive stitch-up job on John Cross, whose original article for the Daily Mirror was given an entirely normal headline (‘Bukayo Saka ready to take World Cup ‘gamble’ in huge boost to England’s chances’) before his work was butchered by their sister site.

That really is some particularly egregious nonsense, mind. Arsenal probably know that a player who started two of their last seven Premier League games in the title run-in, who was restricted to less than an hour of their Champions League semi-final second leg and who played less than half an hour of England’s World Cup warm-up games after missing the March squad through injury, is a bit injured.

Saka literally credited Mikel Arteta and “the Arsenal medical team” for working alongside England and having “managed me amazingly since March”.

As Tuchel said last week of Saka’s ongoing Achilles injury: “They took very good care of him and were very aware of it at Arsenal.”

Everyone knows he’s not 100% and hasn’t been for months. But of course ‘alarming England comments’ like Saka saying he wants to play and feels ready to do so will ‘spark Arsenal concerns’.

SWAT ever’s next?

After revealing how England were ‘shaken’ by a tornado which forced them to change precisely nothing about their plans to stay inside on a quiet pre-tournament evening, The Sun‘s foreign editor Nick Parker continues to try and justify his role in reporting on the many grave dangers facing the Three Lions at the World Cup:

The headline: ‘SWAT team rushes to armed standoff just mile from England World Cup stadium as suspect arrested’.

The opening paragraph: ‘A SWAT team and a host of armed police yesterday responded to an incident a mile from where England’s first match will be played.’

The seventh paragraph: ‘There is no indication the incident was connected to the World Cup or posed any threat to the tournament or its venues.’

It doesn’t bear thinking what terrors await next. Fireworks five miles away are about to rock the England camp.

The reign in Spain

‘Why England and all other World Cup rivals should be worried after Spain are humbled by Cape Verde’ – The Sun website.

It turns out that Spain ‘still cannot be ruled out of contention for the trophy’ despite drawing their opening game and having two group fixtures left.

Between that, tornadoes, crimes being committed nowhere near them, and Saka saying he wants to play, it’ll be a surprise if England have enough unaffected players ready to face Croatia.

Crossed wires

Mediawatch is, as seems to have become a common theme recently, in severe pain trying to understand something Jeremy Cross has written for the Daily Mirror.

His general point is that it’s pretty good for Liverpool that Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak have looked decent at the World Cup so far. That seems fair. They did play Curacao and Tunisia respectively, but still.

This, however, is just weird:

…why would Iraola ‘never admit’ that he wants his really expensive player and best striker to find some form? Is it because Iraola is Spanish, even though they are unlikely to face Sweden until the round of 16 at the earliest? Answers on a postcard, please.

For ref’s sake

‘World’s sexiest referee puts on busty display at World Cup in Miami’ – The Sun website there, glad to hear that Mike Dean is enjoying himself.