England News

• Nickname:Three Lions
• Founded: 1872
• Manager:Roy Hodgson

• Ground:Wembley Stadium
• Capacity:90,000

Mac eyes Gerrard boost

05 Sep 2007 - 07:46:14

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England head coach Steve McClaren is prepared to take a gamble on the fitness of midfielder Steven Gerrard for the crucial Euro 2008 qualifier at home to Israel.

The Liverpool captain is struggling to overcome a broken toe to feature at Wembley on Saturday, but McClaren believes that a painkilling injection will enable Gerrard to feature aginst the Israelis.

He said: "My job is to do whatever I can to get the best players out on the pitch and that is what I will do.

"We are assessing the situation day-by-day and we will take Liverpool into consideration.

"But I am very, very confident Steven will be with us on Saturday for what is a very important game.

"You look and in some cases, if there's no great risk, then fine.

"John Terry and Frank Lampard had broken toes in pre-season and were taking injections and I have known it at club level where it would be just too painful to play without the injection, but there's no risk of further injury if you have one.

"Steven played with an injection against Chelsea a few weeks ago and we would take whatever action is necessary to get him on that field."

Reds boss Rafa Benitez had earlier warned: "We have not taken any risks with Steven at Liverpool and I would not expect England to take any risks with him.

"We do not want Steven to play for England with any painkilling injections.

"We did that against Chelsea and it took four to five days for him to recover to be able to train again."