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Hodgson defends England training approach

ESPN staff
October 2, 2014
Roy Hodgson speaks to the media © Getty Images
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Roy Hodgson has played down criticism of England's training methods after leaving Daniel Sturridge out of his squad for the forthcoming Euro 2016 qualifiers against San Marino and Estonia.

Sturridge has been sidelined for club and country since suffering a thigh injury on international duty in September, leaving Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers to question England's approach in training.

Rodgers claimed Sturridge's injury could have been prevented with the right recovery strategy after the 1-0 win over Norway at Wembley, but Hodgson has defended his approach.

"We're very disappointed about [Sturridge's absence] but it's obviously something we will consider going forward," Hodgson said.

"But the other thing people do need to consider is that we have such a shortage of time and on this particular occasion we had two days to try and hone a very different way of playing.

"Strangely enough, Danny was a very important part of that because we wanted him and Wayne Rooney to play as split strikers and he had a lot of experience of playing that from his Liverpool time, so it was very unfortunate.

"But if I'm going to be put under pressure in future to give every player two days off every time we play, then we won't train at all quite frankly, because we don't have enough time pre-match and post-match."

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