England defender Harry Maguire has made rapid progress in terms of his fitness and the Manchester United man should be named in the matchday squad on Friday.
Maguire picked up an ankle ligament injury while playing for Man United in May and since then he has been on the sidelines. But just 24 hours before England take on Scotland, manager Gareth Southgate has hinted that the defender is very close to getting a start for the Three Lions.
“Harry will be involved tomorrow, the decision we have got to make is whether he is ready to start,” Southgate said, as quoted by The Independent.
“We are really pleased with his progress, he has trained with the team for four or five days now and had no reaction. Each session he is involved in he gets more confident. He is on a really good path.
“We want everyone available, it causes difficult decisions but this morning we had 26 players on the training pitch and that is a great position to be in.
“We know that we have got to compete because otherwise you can get overrun in any game.
“Our focus has got to be on performances getting better with every game we play. For the fans and us it is a big occasion but it is another opportunity for three points and our objective is qualification. That is what we have got to focus on.
“In the past we have done that very well. We did that on Sunday, Sunday was a big occasion for everyone and we handled it very well.”
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This is great news for all the England fans since at one point it seemed like Harry Maguire would miss the whole tournament with this injury. But, at the same time, Tyrone Mings will not be a happy man.
Mings played as the central defensive partner to John Stones during England’s opener vs Croatia but if Maguire is coming back then the Aston Villa man will have to move to the bench.
Scotland are not the strongest of opponents so we don’t think the manager will want to risk calling Harry Maguire back into the side for this game. Tyrone Mings should keep his place in the starting line-up for the second game as well and if England can wrap up the game early then the Man United defender could come on in the second half to get some minutes under his belt.
England have started their EURO campaign with a win and another three points vs Scotland will almost be a certainty that they will play in the knockout stages.
