{"id":396562,"date":"2025-09-04T06:35:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T06:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396562\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T06:35:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T06:35:17","slug":"thursdays-briefing-ruben-loftus-cheek-hoping-for-england-chance-in-qualifier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396562\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday\u2019s briefing: Ruben Loftus-Cheek hoping for England chance in qualifier"},"content":{"rendered":"

England are gearing up for their World Cup qualifier at home to Andorra, while Wales have a much trickier test in Kazakhstan on an artificial pitch.<\/p>\n

Closer to home Liverpool head coach Arne Slot has made a big call for his Champions League plans.<\/p>\n

Loftus-Cheek over his injury ordeal<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"England\u2019sEngland\u2019s Ruben Loftus-Cheek is over his injury fears (Nick Potts\/PA)<\/p>\n

Ruben Loftus-Cheek says he is now at \u201cpeace with the past\u201d after his serious Achilles injury threatened to derail his career.<\/p>\n

The AC Milan midfielder is back in the England squad for the first time since March 2019 after a late call-up for the World Cup qualifiers against Andorra and Serbia.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old was a big part of Sir Gareth Southgate\u2019s squad when he ruptured his Achilles in a post-season charity match for Chelsea in the summer of 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cStuff was playing in my mind about why it happened at such a good point in my career,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt did take a while to process, to get those feelings out. Mentally, you\u2019re a lot more experienced and calmer in the head and at peace with the past and looking to the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rodon blow for Wales boss Bellamy<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Wales'Joe Rodon is one of a number of absentees for Wales (Davies Davies\/PA)<\/p>\n

Craig Bellamy says Wales can cope with a raft of absentees for their World Cup qualifier in Kazakhstan after key defender Joe Rodon joined the list of withdrawals.<\/p>\n

Leeds centre-back Rodon played the full 90 minutes of the 0-0 Premier League draw against Newcastle on Saturday but did not make the 3,000-mile trip to Astana due to concussion protocols.<\/p>\n

Ethan Ampadu, Connor Roberts, Aaron Ramsey, Danny Ward, Nathan Broadhead, Jay Dasilva are also absent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt (injuries) has happened since I\u2019ve been manager and, honestly, it was in the Nations League (last autumn),\u201d Bellamy said at his pre-match press conference in Kazakhstan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was using a lot of players then. Why was I using a lot of players? Now, we\u2019re ready for these type of scenarios.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chiesa fails to make the cut<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"LiverpoolFederico Chiesa has been left out of Liverpool\u2019s Champions League squad by head coach Arne Slot (John Walton\/PA)<\/p>\n

Federico Chiesa has been left out of Liverpool\u2019s Champions League squad at the expense of exciting teenaged forward Rio Ngumhoa.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old Italy international, a cult hero at Anfield despite his lack of playing time, missed the cut as only 17 homegrown players are allowed on the list.<\/p>\n

With Liverpool having already signed the likes of Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez, Giovanni Leoni and Giorgi Mamardashvili this summer, the British record deadline-day capture of Alexander Isak proved decisive for Chiesa.<\/p>\n

That is because head coach Arne Slot opted to name Ngumhoa, who only turned 17 on Friday, after the teenager impressed in pre-season and came off the bench to score a late winner at Newcastle on his Premier League debut.<\/p>\n

No FA appeal over Paqueta case<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"WestThe Football Association will not appeal against the ruling in Lucas Paqueta\u2019s spot-fixing case (Mike Egerton\/PA)<\/p>\n

The Football Association has said it will not appeal against an independent commission\u2019s decision to clear West Ham midfielder Lucas Paqueta of four spot-fixing charges.<\/p>\n

Sanctions in relation to two charges which were found proven \u2013 relating to an alleged failure to co-operate with the FA investigation \u2013 will be decided by the commission at the earliest opportunity, the FA said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe FA is committed to ensuring that the integrity of football is maintained, and full and thorough investigations will always be conducted into serious allegations of rule breaches,\u201d said a statement.<\/p>\n

It had been alleged Paqueta deliberately attempted to receive a card in four Premier League games between November 2022 and August 2023, but the charges were found not proven.<\/p>\n

Wales are in Astana to face Kazakhstan in a World Cup qualifier on an artificial pitch, while Northern Ireland have the considerably shorter trip to Luxembourg.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England are gearing up for their World Cup qualifier at home to Andorra, while Wales have a much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,393,4884,16,16849,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-396562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-uk-sports","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115144643581908077","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}