WAYNE Rooney has withdrawn from England's squad for Wednesday night's World Cup qualifier with Belarus because of a calf injury.
The Manchester United player lasted the full 90 minutes at the Dnipro Arena but, after being assessed at England's training base in Hertfordshire, he has been released back to the Old Trafford club.
Liverpool's Steven Gerrard, however, will remai
n with the squad after having his groin injury assessed. Gerrard only lasted until half-time in the Ukraine.
Rooney will be making the reverse journey to goalkeeper Ben Foster who was named as Robert Green's replacement given the West Ham keeper is now suspended for the Belarus encounter, one of only three remaining before Fabio Capello has to name his squad for next summer's World Cup.
Unless injury hits one of his other four strikers, Capello is unlikely to call in a replacement.
The Italian has the option of pushing Gerrard into a more advanced position, which he plays in so successfully for Liverpool. Alternatively, he could pair Carlton Cole with Emile Heskey, or possibly Aston Villa's Gabriel Agbonlahor, who was an unused substitute on Saturday.
England's players, meanwhile, said the flares thrown in the direction of goalkeepers Green and David James by Ukrainian fans were not responsible for their first competitive defeat under Capello. Green's area was littered with a dozen coloured flares after only a minute of the World Cup qualifier in Dnipro and prompted the game to be delayed. After Green had been sent off after 13 minutes, James suffered similar treatment when he took over between the posts.
Although the Football Association intends to make an official complaint to Fifa about the flares, Capello's squad were quick to insist they did not affect their performance.
James said: "Of course, you can't encourage people to throw flares. It is not the safest thing to do. They were big flares, granted, but you could argue that someone throwing a paper aeroplane on the pitch might take someone's eye out. It didn't detract from our performance."
Midfielder James Milner added: "It seems to happen when you come to these places and you've just got to get on with it. It is part and parcel of it.
"Did it affect the performance? I don't think so. The squad is full of top-class players who've experienced atmospheres a lot like this before. It made no difference to anyone. Maybe it was dangerous to the keepers but I'm sure they've seen it all before."
For England captain John Terry, all the result did was to confirm his side have "a lot of improving to do" before next summer's World Cup. And the central defender said Capello's men should use their remaining five games before the finals as a learning curve.
"Will this result calm people down? Maybe a little bit. But we were never letting ourselves get complacent or thinking that we were world beaters," said Terry.
"We realise we have still got a lot of improving to do. We can use these games as a base for that."
