Cahill assures fitness and backs Rooney to break records
England squad observe silence for Remembrance Day
England defender Gary Cahill has confirmed he will be fit to face Slovenia in Saturday’s Euro 2016 qualifier at Wembley.
Cahill was one of five players to miss Thee Lions training on Tuesday afternoon as a precaution, but he is confident he will be ready to feature in the Group E clash.
Leighton Baines, Phil Jagielka, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Andros Townsend also missed the session at St George’s Park after picking up knocks at the weekend and will be assessed by England’s medical team.
“It’s just a minor hip thing,” Cahill told Sky Sports News. “It’s no problem. I should be training tomorrow [Wednesday], hopefully, and then ready to go and prepare for the weekend.”
England have won their first three group games without conceding a goal, taking their run of clean sheets to five, and Cahill believes that defensive stability is the result of a team effort.
“Five clean sheets now – it’s something that we’re really proud of from the third game in the World Cup onwards, something we’re pleased with,” he said. “As a group we felt that we needed to tighten up after the summer.
“Leading up to the World Cup we did well but the crunch games were obviously the summer. We’ve come under a little bit of criticism so it was important we tightened that up.”
Cahill added: “Everyone has bought into the way we want to play. We’ve changed the shape slightly, I think that’s worked really well for us.
“It’s not just the back four and the goalkeeper, we’ve got players that work really hard in front of us and that’s always important no matter how you set up the team. You need everyone to chip in defensively.”
England captain Wayne Rooney will win his 100th cap on Saturday at the age of just 29 and Cahill has backed the Manchester United striker to beat Peter Shilton’s record of 125.
“He’s fit, he looks after himself, he trains really hard. I can’t see why not,” he said. “He’s relatively young.”
Cahill added: “He’s a world-class player, you’ve seen that over many years. You look at how old he is, to be coming up to 100 caps at such a relatively young age is phenomenal. He can go on for many, many years.
“I don’t want to jinx him but I’m sure he can break all the records. He’s a fantastic player and it’s a fantastic achievement. I’m sure on Saturday he will be very proud and the achievement is amazing.”
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