England boss Roy Hodgson has played down fears over the fitness of Gary Cahill and expects the Chelsea defender to be available for the Euro 2016 qualifier against Switzerland on Monday.
Cahill played for 84 minutes at Wembley as England beat Norway 1-0 in a friendly match that gave few of the 40,000 supporters much to cheer about and left Hodgson fuming at media questions about the standard of the performance.
The England centre-back has been struggling with an ankle knock since Chelsea’s win over Everton on Saturday, so it was a surprise to see him start alongside Phil Jones at the heart of the Three Lions’ defence with Phil Jagielka dropped.
Cahill had an icepack on his ankle moments after being replaced by the Everton man in the closing stages, but Hodgson says he was just taken off as a precaution and will be fit for England’s crunch clash against Switzerland on Monday.
“He came with knock on the ankle as you know from the Everton-Chelsea game,” Hodgson said. “I think he picked it up during the course of the week.
“He trained yesterday and could have completed the game, but we thought it was prudent to take him off with 10-15 minutes left – but there should be no doubt about him being available (for Switzerland).”
England are 2.80 to win in Basel with the Swiss the 2.56 favourites and the draw priced at 3.01 in the 1X2 betting.
England beat Switzerland 3-1 at the same venue during Euro 2012 qualifying four years ago and the same scoreline can be backed at 31.0.
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