The Chelsea academy graduate, who has yet to appear on a winning side this season having made the one-year switch to Selhurst Park, will begin in midfield with his club-mate, Danny Drinkwater, having declined the chance to link up with Gareth Southgate’s squad citing a lack of match fitness. The £35m summer signing from Leicester City has been carrying a calf complaint and has yet to start a Premier League match for his new team.
Loftus-Cheek’s time with Palace has also been hampered by niggling injuries, but he has still made six Premier League starts to date, as many as he has for his parent club since breaking through initially under José Mourinho. The 21-year-old, a regular in England’s junior set-up, claimed the struggling top-flight team’s player of the month award for August. Jack Butland will start successive internationals for the first time.
Preparations for this friendly have been severely hampered by the withdrawal of six high-profile players – Harry Kane, Harry Winks, Dele Alli, Jordan Henderson, Raheem Sterling and Fabian Delph – with Gary Cahill sitting out training at St George’s Park on Thursday morning and unlikely to feature against Germany. The England medical staff are satisfied all those who have dropped out of the squad are genuinely unavailable for the games against Germany and Brazil next Tuesday.
“Harry Kane … I knew he was in trouble because he stayed down,” said Southgate. “Harry Kane doesn’t stay down, so I knew we had a potential problem. Both he and Harry Winks were scanned. Our medical department reviewed those scans, and no way would they have been available for our games. Spurs might risk them against Arsenal … I’m hearing club versus country, but that’s nonsense. The players are injured and cannot play. With some of the players it’s 100% clear from a scan.
“With some others they’ve been playing with problems, and I discuss with them how much risk we take. I don’t just wheel players out until they break. It’s their livelihood, their careers. If it was a critical game, a cup final, maybe we have a conversation. But as a manager you have a duty of care.
“I know Jürgen Klopp [the Liverpool manager] was unhappy I played Jordan twice [last month], but there was no risk in that. I’ve never taken a risk with a player. Same with Jamie Vardy last month [the Leicester forward dropped out of the squad, but played for his club immediately after the international break]: I speak to the player, sense what they need, and that’s how I work.”
Numbers have been made up with numbers from the junior teams, with Chelsea’s Jay Dasilva, on loan at Charlton, and Fulham’s Tayo Edun taking part today. The Tottenham forward Marcus Edwards and Chelsea’s Jake Clarke-Salter had taken part in the session on Wednesday.
Southgate has urged England supporters to refrain from any offensive chants at Wembley as the Football Association seek to avoid a repeat of the “completely unacceptable” scenes which marred the last meeting between the teams. The friendly in Dortmund in March had seen some visiting fans boo the national anthem, sing a number of songs referencing the first and second world wars, and outstretch their arms to mimic fighter plans.
The FA subsequently banned two fans for life from the England Supporters Travel Club after one was caught on camera making a Nazi salute and the other put two fingers to his upper lip to mimic Adolf Hitler’s moustache and followed that with a cut-throat gesture. The FA chairman, Greg Clarke, condemned the behaviour of a small number of fans that night as “inappropriate, disrespectful and disappointing”.
Germany’s visit to Wembley on Friday comes just ahead of Remembrance Sunday, and the reigning world champions will join their hosts in wearing a poppy on their shirts in the fixture. Southgate had been asked about the incidents in Dortmund after his side’s 1-0 defeat, but had not been fully conscious of what had actually occurred at the Westfalenstadion.
“I was asked about it immediately after the game in Dortmund and, to be honest, wasn’t aware at the time what had been said, so it was hearsay,” said the England manager. “I wasn’t as strong as I would have liked to have been. It’s unacceptable. Completely unacceptable. We have a huge percentage of fans who follow us brilliantly. We experienced that in Lithuania [in October] when we went over to the supporters at the end of the game.
“An element that did things that were shouted that night were totally unacceptable. We’ve moved on from those times, and should have moved on from those times. They don’t represent us as a team, the people who do that. But I want to be very specific because I don’t want it to be ‘our fans’ as a collective.
“We’re talking about individuals. The mass majority support us brilliantly. To add to that, Germany have taken a huge step in agreeing to wear the poppy in this fixture, so that is also something that should be noted and we appreciate what they are doing.”
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