• England

Rodgers warned to watch what he says

England manager Roy Hodgson has warned Brendan Rodgers to be more cautious with his words after the Liverpool boss claimed Daniel Sturridge's injury was avoidable.

Sturridge has been sidelined for a month because of a controversial thigh injury he suffered on international duty in September.

Around 36 hours after playing 89 minutes of England's 1-0 win over Norway, Sturridge pulled up with a thigh strain at St George's Park.

Rodgers was unhappy that the striker was taking part in a full training session so soon after a match, and claimed the injury was entirely "preventable".

Hodgson keeping eye on West Brom clash

Roy Hodgson insisted Daniel Sturridge is not fit © Getty Images

• England manager Roy Hodgson has shrugged off accusations that he is setting a dangerous precedent by omitting Daniel Sturridge from his squad at the request of Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers.
  
  The striker will miss next week's Euro 2016 qualifiers against San Marino and Estonia but could be fit enough to turn out for Liverpool against West Brom in the Premier League this weekend.
  
  Hodgson however, suggested Sturridge has little chance of being fit enough to play on Saturday, but admitted he will be keeping a close eye on events at Anfield this weekend.
  
  "What's the precedent here?" Hodgson said. "He is not fit. How do you select a player that's not fit? Let's wait and see [if he plays against West Brom]. All injuries are preventable. This was unfortunate."

However, despite bowing to Rodgers' request to leave Sturridge out of the England squad for the upcoming Euro 2016 qualifiers against San Marino and Estonia, Hodgson insisted that injuries are a fact of football and warned the Liverpool manager to choose his words more wisely.

"Injuries do happen," Hodgson said. "No manager has as yet said to me that players must not train two days after a game.

"But I understand that Daniel is an important player and I understand Brendan being unhappy that he is injured.

"You have to be careful saying injuries are preventable. We could have done a completely different training session or Daniel could have done a recovery session which Brendan might have thought was more suitable but I still couldn't guarantee there wouldn't have been an injury."

Reports suggested the Liverpool manager also claimed Sturridge had asked to undertake a light session - in line with his individual training programme at the Merseyside club - rather than a full one, but Hodgson denies that was the case.

"I don't remember that. That's dangerous, that one," Hodgson said. "I don't remember that at all. I don't have any memory of Daniel telling me that he didn't want to train.

"He was quite keen to take part in that training session because he was such an important part of it. He was more than happy to come in and help us."

Rodgers insists on giving his "fast" players two days to recover from matches. Hodgson has no plans to implement the same system with England, though.

"I've never been asked to give 48 hours' [rest] to a player," Hodgson added. "We did quite a lot of two-day recoveries during our time in Brazil and we realised that we were just killing ourselves in terms of the training time we have available.

"For me that is unacceptable as we need to work with the players."

Hodgson spoke to Rodgers on Thursday morning and the England manager was keen to insist he is not in dispute with the Liverpool boss, who has four players in the full squad even without Sturridge.

"There isn't a club-country conflict on this," Hodgson added. "I'm perfectly happy with the situation. Rodgers seems to be happy with the situation. The one person who is unhappy is Daniel because he would have loved to have been with us, but he can't because he is injured.

"We want harmony and the way to get harmony is to try to have a relationship a) with the player, who you would hope would be very unhappy when he can't play for you and b) with the club, who you hope are happy to release their players to play for their country. That's our aim."

However, Sturridge's loss is Danny Welbeck's gain.

Hodgson was at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday to see the striker score his first career hat-trick as Arsenal hammered Galatasaray 4-1.

Welbeck led the line for England against Switzerland in Sturridge's absence to good effect and he is now expected to push his claim for a regular place in the national side against San Marino and Estonia.

"I think whenever a player is injured and loses his place through injury he does run that risk," said Hodgson when asked about the battle between Sturridge and Welbeck to be Wayne Rooney's strike partner.

"You would hope players are very anxious not to miss out on England duty because they would fear they may lose their places because someone else comes in and does well.

"Danny's doing well. I'm very pleased he's doing well and it's good for us he's following up his England goals with Arsenal goals."

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