England are into their final preparations before Thomas Tuchel names his squad for the World Cup.
The Three Lions head coach selects his 26-man group for this summer’s finals in North America in May, so tonight’s friendly against Uruguay and Tuesday’s game back at Wembley against Japan are the last chance for tournament hopefuls to press their case.
Why are Kane, Saka and Rice not playing for England tonight?
There are 11 players being handed a mid-season rest this week. These are players who have become key to Tuchel’s England operation but who have also been representing their clubs in European competition so have faced exhausting schedules during the first seven months of the season.
While Bayern Munich talisman Kane was the beneficiary of the Bundesliga’s 18-day winter break, he is part of this group so will play no part against Uruguay.
The 11 players not involved in training ahead of the Uruguay match and so unavailable tonight are: Kane, Dean Henderson, Dan Burn, Marc Guehi, Ezri Konsa, Nico O’Reilly, Elliot Anderson, Morgan Rogers, Anthony Gordon, Rice and Saka.
After tonight’s game – either this evening or on Saturday morning – these players will join up with camp and get the chance to compete for match minutes in Tuesday’s game against Japan.
When they join up, others will leave the squad. The likes of Harvey Barnes, Aaron Ramsdale and Fikayo Tomori are likely to return to their clubs to allow space for the 11 players coming in.
Not everyone present for the Uruguay game will leave – for example, Chelsea’s Cole Palmer will stay – but Tuchel has made it clear that he does not want to work with a group of players too large at any one time, as it makes it more difficult to give them a healthy training experience with the attention they each require.