Ukraine @ England: The Injury Fairy Strikes Again

Artem Kravets’s hopes of making his national team debut at Wembley stadium were dashed when he suffered a muscle tear in his hip during training. The in-form Dynamo Kyiv striker was replaced on the roster by Shakhtar Donetsk’s Yevhen Seleznyov. While the Ukraine squad is getting sick of going up against one another at their St. Albans training base outside of London, England took on Slovakia in a friendly and came away with a 4-0 win. But despite the comfortable scoreline not all is well with Fabio Capello’s side.

Emile Heskey opened the scoring early on for the Three Lions, but had to be substituted just a quarter hour in when he re-aggravated a lingering Achilles injury. His replacement Carlton Cole did not make it to the end of the first half, needing to be stretchered off. Things didn’t work out much better for his sub Peter Crouch, who left the pitch in obvious discomfort midway through the second half. Luckily for England they still have Rabid Shrek, er… I mean Wayne Rooney, to carry the scoring load. Rooney scored a second half brace to put the result beyond doubt, but England’s performance was far from convincing. The hosts were sloppy in defense in the absence of Rio Ferdinand, and Slovakia forced David James into some top notch saves while the tie was still in the balance. If the same England shows up on Wednesday, Ukraine has an opportunity for a famous result.

Update: Heskey has been ruled out for Wednesday’s match. Capello has called up Tottenham striker Darren Bent in response to Saturday’s casualties.