Declan Rice and William Saliba have both confirmed lingering injuries that carried from the Premier League season into the 2026 World Cup, underlining concerns about the demands on players at elite clubs.<\/p>\n
Rice disclosed an ongoing hamstring issue after a heavy campaign with Arsenal and a quick turn to international duty in North America. \u201cI was feeling a little bit of neural pain in my hamstring, which I was managing from after Christmas with Arsenal for a very long time,\u201d he told ITV Sport. \u201cObviously, not a lot of people would have known that. It was all behind-the-scenes stuff but it was a smart decision.\u201d Thomas Tuchel managed Rice\u2019s minutes in England\u2019s opener, taking the 27-year-old out of the match after 72 minutes. Rice said the substitution was prudent. \u201cIn the end, that last 20 minutes is probably where you pick up the most, and it\u2019s where you play a 70-minute match. But that last 20 is where you really feel your body going for it. And I think it was a smart decision because the last few days I felt really, really good.\u201d He added that he is \u201cready and fit, raring to go\u201d for his country.<\/p>\n
Saliba admitted he is not at full fitness but is playing through discomfort as France pursue another title. \u201cI\u2019ve had some minor niggles for several months,\u201d Saliba said in his prematch press conference for Les Bleus\u2019 clash with Iraq. \u201cI\u2019ve been gritting my teeth because there was the Champions League and the Premier League. But the coaching staff are handling it very well,\u201d he continued. Reports have suggested a potential back operation could be considered after the tournament. Saliba, 25, played at least 50 times for Arsenal for a third straight season and featured the full 90 minutes in France\u2019s 3\u20131 win over Senegal.<\/p>\n
Rice highlighted the cumulative toll: he played 63 matches last season for club and country and could add eight more if England reach the final. \u201cIt\u2019s an obscene amount of games,\u201d Rice said. \u201cThe schedule was crazy but what can we do about it? You can\u2019t sit and complain. We have to just get on with it for the moments like I had in the Premier League, winning that Premier League.<\/p>\n
“You know you\u2019d play as many games as possible to have that feeling again and knowing that there\u2019s a World Cup at the end of it as well. You know you\u2019d put your body on the line to be always in to play. It\u2019s a lot of games but we\u2019ll get our break at the end.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rice and Saliba disclosed lingering injuries and warned about obscene number of matches players endure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,961,969],"tags":[1484,1683],"class_list":["post-15025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-international","category-premier-league","tag-appearance-record","tag-back-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}