Marcus Rashford says he is fully committed to England and does not care if onlookers criticise or question his dedication to the national team. The 25-year-old is preparing for the Euro 2024 qualifiers against Malta and North Macedonia having withdrawn from March’s meet-up through injury. Rashford has had to pull out of numerous camps over the years but his decision to head to New York while England were winning their Group C opener 2-1 in Italy sparked debate. Boss Gareth Southgate defended the 51-cap forward’s decision to jet off to the United States at the time and the Manchester United forward says he was unmoved by critical voices. “I didn’t see it, to be honest with you,” Rashford said. “I didn’t see it until I got home. “I need time to switch off and recover, so I took a short trip, four days, then went back to do rehab and just try and get ready as soon as possible. “With injuries, you can’t predict when they’re going to happen. “Thankfully I have very few muscle strains and them type of injuries, but occasionally you do get impact injuries. The majority of my injuries have been that.” Asked if people questioning his commitment to playing for his country hurt, Rashford replied: “Honestly, it doesn’t. “I know that I’m committed to it 100 per cent, people are going to say what they’re going to say. It doesn’t really bother me.” Rashford laughed off that talk as he prepares to play in his first qualifier since England won 4-0 away to Kosovo in November 2019 – the last international before the schedule paused due to the coronavirus pandemic. He will surely get minutes in Friday’s Euro 2024 qualifier at Malta, but the availability of England’s Manchester City quintet is unclear. Jack Grealish, Kyle Walker, Phil Foden, John Stones and Kalvin Phillips arrived at St George’s Park on Tuesday after days celebrating their treble triumph. Saturday’s Champions League win over Inter Milan saw City join Manchester United as the only English sides to win the Premier League, FA Cup and European Cup – a bruising moment for the red half of the city. “To be honest, it’s not nice (to see City’s success) but at the same time it’s football,” United product Rashford said. “The best team that’s consistently playing the best football is going to win the most trophies and they’ve managed to win three this year. “Well done to them and we just move on now and it’s up to them to keep it up, and it’s up to the rest of us to try and catch them up.” Asked if City’s achievements provide extra motivation, United’s homegrown star said: “Yeah, 100 per cent.” Rashford’s attention now is squarely on international matters as a mammoth, unrelenting campaign finally comes to a conclusion. He has made an eye-watering 61 appearances for club and country in an unprecedented campaign that had the World Cup in Qatar wedged in the middle. That figure could reach 63 if he plays against Malta and at Old Trafford against North Macedonia on Monday – a qualifier that is just 23 days before United’s first pre-season match. Rashford, when asked about the need for the calendar to be looked at, said: “I think that’s evident. “It’s mad that at club level we’re playing against teams that are playing one game a week, and we’re playing three games a week from November up until we got knocked out of Europa League. “It’s difficult but at the same time we’re used to doing it, but I don’t think it’s right.” Rashford does not know what he would like to see altered but said he is “not the one that’s supposed to have the answers”. “The players are going to push ourselves to the absolute limits,” he added. “I did say it’s nothing new so it’s not a complaint or a dig, I’m just giving you my honest opinion and I don’t think it’s correct. “We need to be given more time to recover between certain games and at different stages of the season. “That’s my opinion but I don’t think it’s down to the players. We shouldn’t have to put ourselves in a position to speak out about something that we’re not in control of or we’re not going to make the final decision on.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan ‘recuperating’ from medical situation ‘Serial winners’ can help England finally celebrate silverware – Tyrone Mings Rob Page welcomes break for Brennan Johnson ahead of Wales’ Euro 2024 qualifiers

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England resume their Euro 2024 qualifying campaign on Friday as they face Malta away from home. Gareth Southgate’s side have made a great start by beating both their most likely rivals for a top-two finish, Ukraine and Italy, while Malta have lost to the latter as well as North Macedonia - who the Three Lions will face next week. Come the end of this round of fixtures, Southgate will be expecting to sit on 12 points and be a big step closer to qualifying for the next summer’s finals in Germany. But the first part of that job is to be professional and claim victory in Malta, even though the game comes at the end of another long season which ran up until only a few days ago for some of the squad’s stars. Here’s everything you need to know. When is Malta vs England? The Euro 2024 qualifier kicks off at 7:45pm BST on Friday 16 June. Where can I watch it? England’s Euro 2024 qualifiers are free-to-air after Channel 4 secured the rights for all Three Lions games for two years. Fans can stream the match via Channel 4’s app and desktop website. What is the England team news? It’s not yet clear whether Man City’s stars will feature in the match given their Champions League exertions - and subsequent celebrations - but it’s likely Gareth Southgate will offer a chance to a few players who are not habitual starters. Marc Guehi could be in line to win just his fourth cap in defence and Crystal Palace teammate Ebe Eze is hoping for his senior debut with the national team. Jude Bellingham has just completed his transfer to Real Madrid but will not be playing in this break as he recovers from injury. Predicted lineups MAL - Bonello, Attard, Borg, Apap, Corbalan, Muscat, Guillaumier, Yankam, Mbong, Jones, Satariano ENG - Pickford, Trippier, Guehi, Maguire, Shaw, Rice, Gallagher, Eze, Saka, Kane, Maddison Odds Malta 66/1 Draw 18/1 England 1/20 Prediction No contest in terms of the outcome of course, so it’s about how clinical and intense England can be in the humid conditions. Malta 0-4 England.

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Instead of the third most expensive footballer in history, Liverpool have unveiled the third most expensive midfielder they have signed this summer and the third they targeted in swift succession. A dizzying week that began with a British record bid for Moises Caicedo ended with Romeo Lavia joining the Ecuadorian at Stamford Bridge and the arrival of Wataru Endo at Anfield, almost £100m cheaper than one of the men who preferred Chelsea to Liverpool and seemingly out of the blue. This, Jurgen Klopp accepted, was not how many supporters hoped their search for a No 6 would go. “It is a transfer that is not in the public eye,” he said. “It’s not ‘Oh my God!’ and probably nobody at this moment is texting a new song for him.” That said, though, Klopp did get a text from an influential figure in German football, congratulating him on the signing of the former VfB Stuttgart captain. If Caicedo can be billed as the new N’Golo Kante, and not merely because of the Ecuadorian’s choice of club, Klopp looked into Liverpool’s recent past for a comparison for his latest buy. He settled on perhaps the most unglamorous figure of their recent glory years, James Milner. He urged fans to look beyond the bare facts about Endo – a 30-year-old relegation firefighter in the Bundesliga – and embrace an unlikely addition. “I know how football fans are, they would prefer to bring in a player who is £110m,” he said. Normally when a manager pleads that a player should not be judged on his price tag, it is because he is costly, not cheap. “But wait: he has something that Liverpool supporters will love, definitely,” added Klopp. “He is already used to red a little bit [from Stuttgart], so that’s good, and when he puts that shirt on he will throw everything on the pitch and the people will love that, I know that. We had this with James Milner a little bit. Obviously a slightly different profile but could you respect James Milner more for playing 15 minutes at the end and just closing a game down?” Milner, Klopp added, was “one of the biggest Liverpool legends of my time and arrived here he was 29”. The German came to Anfield a few months later and since then he had only signed one outfield player in their thirties: defender Ragnar Klavan in 2016, also from a bottom-half Bundesliga club. But if Klopp has to convince the Anfield public Endo is not too near the end, he also had to persuade his employers. “The way our owners see it he was already too old when he joined Stuttgart,” he said. “The owners really want 200 games at 20 years old. That is pretty difficult. I didn’t need any kind of convincing. I know that the best time for a football player is from 27 to 33 in a normal career.” If Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai conform to the usual model for Liverpool signings in the Fenway Sports Group era, Endo is an anomaly. His new manager’s view is that the Japan captain is a young 30. “When you see him, you think ‘is he allowed to drive a car?’” Klopp asked. Certainly, a four-year contract reflects Liverpool’s belief that, like Milner before him, Endo will retain his running power deep into his thirties. His age, he feels, is a reason his new recruit was overlooked; why he is the exception to FSG’s rule. “He is a late bloomer and he improved every year since he was on the proper football screen,” he said. Klopp has always savoured an underdog tale; for him, there is much to enjoy in the way Endo took a long and winding road to Liverpool, via Shonan Bellmare, Urawa Red Diamonds, Sint-Truiden and then Stuttgart. “I am really happy these kind of stories are still possible in this crazy world of football,” he said. “It feels just right.” And Liverpool definitely feels right for Endo. “A dream come true,” said a player for whom such a move would long have seemed utterly unrealistic. After Caicedo and Lavia showed rather less enthusiasm to sign, Klopp grinned as he stressed Liverpool finally reached an agreement with “the club and the player”. There can be no pretence Endo was Liverpool’s first choice but he sought to address the perception that desperation ruled. “He was on my list from the beginning,” he said. He had watched Endo since he joined Stuttgart in 2019. He moved for him after Liverpool had just 35 per cent possession against Chelsea – “crazy,” Klopp said – when, in the absence of a specialist defensive midfielder, Mac Allister had to impersonate one. But it was such a shock that even Endo pronounced himself surprised. He is the £15m man, not the £115m midfielder. “But in the end the pitch is the same size,” Klopp said. “The player will not grow with the money he costs, it’s rather the other way around.” But even Endo has grown into a Liverpool player late in his career, Klopp is hoping he has a Milner-esque impact for a price a fraction of Caicedo’s. 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