Harry Kane has declared himself “good to go” to start his third England match in a week, as he closes in on Peter Shilton's all-time appearance record.
England boss Thomas Tuchel has admitted the cramped Nations League fixture list - four games in 11 days - increases the risk of injury to players. Premier League bosses have already seen players get hurt in this extended international window, and Nico O'Reilly has been sent home because of injury.
Kane closing in on Shilton's record
Kane, who has 123 caps, is set to start against Croatia and wants to equal Shilton's 125 appearance record in this camp as they face the Czech Republic on Tuesday.
Tuchel said: “Harry wants to play and he will. The players just want to go again because they have a three-day turnaround in between matches.
Tuchel's injury concerns
“A match can be so different - the match against Spain was the highest intensity in the output of some players. The match against ten men was a totally different story. We took care of some players after 70 minutes. It becomes a totally different story. So Harry is good to go.
“But if there was not an international break, it would be maybe Champions League or Cup. I feel like the more I think about it, it's the different position. It's the traveling. It's different training. It's different training times that the players are used to.
“I think this increases the risk more than the pure match itself because the matches would have come anyway, and like I said it before, if you have in club football a Saturday-Tuesday, it's very unlikely that you have another Saturday-Tuesday.
“It's very likely that you have Saturday-Wednesday, and it just makes a big difference. So now we have another turnaround with only two matches. A Wednesday would decrease the risk of injury dramatically.
“But for me it's not the matches in itself, but the different style of match, different position, different training, lots of travelling in between that's maybe increasing this risk.”
