Rio and Butt ruled out

Injured: Nicky Butt
14 April 2012

England have suffered a double setback with Rio Ferdinand and Nicky Butt both forced to withdraw from Wednesday's Euro qualifier with Liechtenstein at Old Trafford through injury.

Butt played in Macedonia in Saturday's 2-1 success but has an ongoing ankle problem and will not be fit for the game on his home ground.

Ferdinand missed the game in Skopje with a knee problem and it has not recovered sufficiently for him to be considered against the Group 7 whipping boys.

Football Association media spokesman Adrian Bevington said: "Nicky Butt and Rio Ferdinand unfortunately have had to withdraw from the squad due to injury today.

"Nicky has an ankle problem and will not be recovered in time for Wednesday's match.

"Rio is still not fully recovered from the problem that kept him out of Saturday's game."

England had already lost the services of Manchester City winger Trevor Sinclair with a knee injury before the Macedonia game.

But England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson has no plans to call up any replacement into his depleted squad at this stage.

He has already received a boost with the news that midfielder Steven Gerrard has shaken off the ankle problem which stopped him from being part of the side that overcame the Macedonians to be in contention to face Liechtenstein.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT