Bukayo Saka injury update as Arsenal star limps off during England defeat | Football
Bukayo Saka will be assessed after picking up a leg injury during England’s 2-1 defeat to Greece at Wembley, Lee Carsley revealed.
On a chastening night for interim boss Carsley, the Three Lions slumped to their first-ever defeat against Greece after Vangelis Pavlidis’ injury-time winner.
It capped off a disastrous evening for England that also saw Saka limp off while appearing to hold his hamstring midway through the second half.
The Arsenal winger was replaced by Noni Madueke and Carsley said that the 23-year-old will now undergo tests to discover the severity of the knock.
‘He’s being assessed,’ Carsley said in his post-match press conference. ‘In the build-up to the first goal you could see that he had felt something in his leg.’
England are back in action against Finland on Sunday and Carsley will hope to be able to call on Harry Kane and Jack Grealish again after the pair played no part at Wembley on Thursday.
‘We’ll assess them two tomorrow because we’ll train in the morning and hopefully Jack and Harry will take part in that session,’ he said. ‘We’ll definitely be freshening up the team for the next game.’
Reflecting on his side’s performance as a whole, Carsley admitted that England did not reach their usual levels and were let down by errors at the back.
‘We were second best for a lot of tonight, it is disappointing. You are going to get setbacks and it’s important we respond,’ he told ITV.
‘We tried something different and tried to overload the midfield. We tried it for 20 minutes yesterday, we experimented and [we’re] disappointed it didn’t come off.
‘It’s unrealistic to expect too much and we will have to try again. All the goals were from mistakes, which is disappointing.’
Pressed about his side’s experimental formation on the night, Carsley replied: ‘It is definitely an option going forward. When you have someone of Kane’s quality though it rules it out when he is available.
‘But in the future, you have to have the courage and ability to try things. We tried something different. It doesn’t change anything. My remit is to do the three camps.’