{"id":659810,"date":"2026-06-26T18:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/659810\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T18:41:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T18:41:09","slug":"world-cup-2026-declan-rice-back-in-england-training-but-reece-james-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/659810\/","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Declan Rice back in England training but Reece James out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Declan Rice returned to England training on Friday but Reece James missed the session as doubt remained about his availability for the Three Lions’ final group game against Panama. <\/p>\n

Chelsea defender James has a hamstring issue which arose in England’s 0-0 draw with Ghana<\/a> on Tuesday, and he was missing from group training before the squad’s departure to New York.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old was following an individual programme inside the training base in Kansas City but was not on the pitch with the rest of his team-mates.<\/p>\n

Jarell Quansah, Djed Spence and Ezri Konsa are head coach Thomas Tuchel’s alternative options at right-back.<\/p>\n

James is a key player for England and Tuchel will hope that the issue is not something that will keep him out of the tournament in the longer term.<\/p>\n

Rice left the Boston Stadium after the Ghana draw with strapping on his left calf and missed training on Thursday – but it was felt the knock just needed rest.<\/p>\n

The Arsenal midfielder is expected to be available for the Panama game on Saturday (22:00 BST).<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen if Tuchel is willing to start Rice, though, as he is at risk of suspension for the round of 32 after he was booked against Ghana.<\/p>\n

Rice’s midfield partner Elliot Anderson – poised for a \u00a3116m move from Nottingham Forest to Manchester City – was another who was absent from England’s session on Thursday, but he was present on Friday.<\/p>\n

England can secure top spot in Group L and then plot their route through the knockout stages with a win over Panama.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Declan Rice returned to England training on Friday but Reece James missed the session as doubt remained about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-659810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}