Marc Guehi was due to have a scan on Sunday on the hip problem that took him off at half-time of Manchester City's defeat at Nottingham Forest, and England will not know until the results come back whether their most reliable defender can report for international duty this week.
Enzo Maresca said afterwards that the 26-year-old had asked to be substituted. He did not go into detail about the injury, but it is understood the hip has been bothering Guehi for several weeks. A player asking to come off is rarely a good sign, and it is that detail rather than the scan itself that has set off the alarm around the England camp.
Why Tuchel will be anxious
Thomas Tuchel has built his defence around Guehi since taking the England job in January 2025. The former Crystal Palace captain started all but one of England's matches at the World Cup and played in all four Nations League fixtures in September and October. There is no obvious like-for-like replacement who has anything close to that run of starts behind him.
England medical staff are expected to want to assess Guehi themselves before a final call is made, which means the decision may not come quickly. Clubs and country rarely see these things the same way, and City will have an opinion of their own about a player who has been managing the problem rather than resting it.
Two difficult fixtures to prepare for
England face Croatia at Wembley on Thursday 12 November and then travel to Madrid to play Spain, the World Cup winners, on Saturday 15 November. That is not a window in which you want to be experimenting at centre-back. The Spain fixture in particular is the kind of test Tuchel has spent the year building towards.
A season that keeps asking questions of City's back line
Guehi joined Manchester City from Palace in January and has been a regular since. His substitution came during a third successive league defeat for City, who lost 3-1 at the City Ground on Saturday and have been overtaken in the table by Brighton. Losing him for any stretch would compound a bad run rather than start one.
For now there is no confirmed diagnosis and no timescale, only a scan and a short wait. England will name their final availability once the results are in.
Injury context: Marc Guehi, 26, Manchester City and England centre-back, signed from Crystal Palace in January. Substituted at half-time of City's 3-1 defeat at Nottingham Forest on 7 November with a hip complaint. England play Croatia at Wembley on 12 November and Spain in Madrid on 15 November in the Nations League.
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