England take on Panama in their second Group G game of the 2018 World Cup on Sunday and before the encounter, the England fans have been receiving some mixed news from the Three Lions base at Repino.
While Panama are not expected to pose a major threat to Harry Kane’s team but the biggest talking point amongst the English fans right now is whether Dele Alli will be fit to play on Sunday.
And it is here where the English media seems to be in a bit of bother.
The first report comes from a reliable source of talkSPORT who had asked Gareth Southgate about Dele Alli’s fitness and his likely involvement in the Panama game to which the boss said:
“Not yet, no.
“I mean I think always from the type of training that we do they have a good idea and clearly we had a team that played very well and won.
“So, we’re not going to be wildly different to that.
“We have to wait and see whether Dele is going to be fit. It’s looking unlikely because he has not trained with the team yet, but he’s progressing really well, so we won’t rule that out just yet.”
On the other hand, some reports in England are now claiming that the Spurs man has recovered before schedule and is very much available to play against Panama on Sunday.
But they also go on to add that Gareth Southgate will not risk playing Alli given the fact that Panama are not a very tough opponent – atleast on paper.
So clearly there are two sets of news doing the rounds right now in England but not of them conclude that Dele Alli will not be in the line-up against Panama.
From what we can say the Spurs player did not take part in Friday’s training session at Repino and if he indeed misses out on the game then it will be Ruben Loftus-Cheek who is likely to get a start – as per the suggestion from the leaked team sheet.
Read: EPL manager rips into Caballero after his costly error for Argentina.
Read: England’s team sheet vs Panama leaked but here’s one big mistake which many failed to notice
