Earlier this week we reported on the flashpoint involving England and England vs Ghana. The update now is about Declan Rice, who said he is still "ready and fit" after leaving Gillette Stadium with a limp and significant strapping around his left calf. He also admitted he had been managing hamstring pain for months.

Rice's injury update

Rice did not hide the scale of it when he spoke to football.london. "I was feeling a little bit of neural pain in my hamstring, which I was managing from after Christmas with Arsenal for a very long time. Obviously, not a lot of people would have known that. It was all behind-the-scenes stuff, but it was a smart decision," he said.

He added that pain had also crept into his lower back while he was nursing the issue. That is the part England will care about, because this was not a short-term knock picked up in one game. It was a problem he had been carrying for a long stretch while still playing through it.

Rice finished England vs Ghana, which ended 0-0, and played 90 minutes. His rating was 7.13. So the football itself does not point to a player falling apart on the night, even if the body language afterwards was harder to ignore.

England's selection call

The workload case is obvious enough. Rice started 9 of 12 possible England games since the start of last season, made 55 appearances for Arsenal last season and played nearly 4,500 minutes across all competitions. That is a heavy load for any midfielder, and it fits with the way he described the schedule: "It's an obscene amount of games. The schedule was crazy, but what can we do about it?"

There is also the discipline angle. Rice collected a yellow card in the 41st minute against Ghana, and the Express said he had yellow cards in both group matches, with another booking against Panama set to trigger a suspension for the last-32 match. The caution against Ghana is verified, the suspension warning stays conditional, and that is enough for Thomas Tuchel to think carefully about how much more Rice should be asked to do.

Rice says he is fit. England still have to decide how much risk they want to run with a midfielder who has already talked about hamstring pain, lower-back discomfort and a punishing schedule.

Written by Jack Mercer with AI-assisted research, cross-checked against 2 outlets. How we work →