Roy Hodgson’s midfield woes have abated a little after the England manager confirmed that Scott Parker will start the final warm-up game before the European Championships against Belgium at Wembley tomorrow.
Hodgson has seen his midfield resources consistently depleted in recent days, with Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry withdrawing through injury. Jack Wilshere and Tom Cleverley have long since been ruled out of travelling to Poland and the Ukraine this summer.
After the Tottenham Hotspur midfielder missed the last month of the Barclays Premier League season with an Achilles complaint, it had been feared he, too, might be forced to withdraw from Hodgson’s squad for the finals, leaving Steven Gerrard, the captain, as the last senior midfielder standing.
Parker, though, emerged unscathed from a training session at Wembley today and Hodgson has confirmed the 30-year-old will start against Marc Wilmots’s talented side.
Asked if he has any ongoing concerns about Parker’s overall fitness, Hodgson said: “No, not particularly, no more so than the obvious one that we were going to have, that when he came to join us having not played for Tottenham in the last two or three matches in the league.
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“So that was obviously going to be a factor, but we also knew we had lots of training time and now in the two weeks we’ve been training he’s taken part in every training session and he’s also played 60 minutes already and he’s available to play tomorrow.
“So he’ll be getting fitter by the day, as will Wayne Rooney, and we’re quite happy that by the time we play France people will be in good physical shape.
“I wasn’t able to use all the players in the last game as [the Chelsea players] had been involved in the Champions League final so it’s pretty obvious I will want to have a look at them.
“As far as Steven and Scott are concerned I am happy to continue with them in the centre of midfield. The back four and goalkeeper will obviously change and I have still got to wrestle with what we’re going to do in the wide areas and up front.”
Hodgson was forced to call on Jordan Henderson as a replacement for Lampard despite the Liverpool midfielder’s underwhelming first season at Anfield.
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Michael Carrick would have been a more natural replacement but he told the FA several months ago that he was reluctant to report for international duty as a fringe member of the squad, a similar stance to that taken by Ben Foster and Paul Robinson, the goalkeepers.
The Manchester United midfielder might have been regretting his decision after Lampard and Barry’s misfortunes but Hodgson this week resisted the temptation to approach Carrick about reversing his decision.
“The contacts with Michael were actually conducted before I took the job,” Hodgson said. “It was made clear to me that he wasn’t a player who wanted to be considered, so quite frankly he wasn’t a player I did consider.
“He’s a player that I’ve always admired, of course, and, who knows, in the future if these type of injuries continue, he might have a very important part to play.”
Henderson was overlooked by Hodgson when Barry dropped out of the squad with an abdominal injury, the manager calling up Phil Jagielka, a defender, as a replacement. Lampard’s injury has given the former Sunderland player his opportunity, however, and Hodgson admitted that he had to pick a midfielder given England’s dwindling resources in that area.
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“All muscle tears can be close, there are few that clear up in two weeks,” Hodgson said. “When we lost Gareth Barry I replaced him with Phil Jagielka as I thought in Scott Parker, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard we had cover in different areas, but there was no chance I could take a risk [after Lampard’s withdrawal].”