England boss Gareth Southgate has reacted to the possibility of not having both Mason Mount and Ben Chilwell in his side for the next 10 days. The pair are doubts for their side's final Group D encounter with Czech Republic after being forced to self-isolate following their up-close post-game interaction with Scotland's Billy Gilmour, who has tested positive for coronavirus.
On Monday, Scotland issued a statement confirming that their young midfielder had gone into isolation after returning a positive Covid-19 result in the mandatory tests performed ahead of games. As a precation, England immediately instructed Mount and Chilwell to isolate as well as they had embraced and conversed with their Chelsea teammate following his Man of the Match-worthy performance in last Friday's stalemates. It was subsequently revealed that tests performed on the other players of the Three Lions had been negative.
Regardless of this, both Mount and Chilwell could be held in self-isolation for the next 10 days, a development that will see them miss out on featuring in Tuesday's game against Czech Republic as well as England's potential Round of 16 fixture. Head coach Gareth Southgate has since reacted to the situation, citing that the absence of the pair cannot be taken lightly knowing the magnitude of game on their hands. Asked if the Chelsea stars will be fit for Tuesday's game, he replied: "We don't know at the moment.
"There's obviously got to be quite a doubt but there's still a lot of discussions and investigations going on behind the scenes, so at the moment they're isolating and we just have to find out over the next 12 hours or so.
"We had worked with the players this morning on the training pitch, so of course then you find out as you finish that this is the situation, so I can't say it isn't disruptive of course.
An update from the #ThreeLions camp... pic.twitter.com/sPwBVgvGzo
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"We don't really know at this point whether they might be ok for tomorrow or they could be out for 10 days, so there's a lot of unknowns frankly at this moment in time.
"Although we worked on the training pitch, we hadn't confirmed the team. We put some players in and moved them around, so we hadn't confirmed the team yet and we'll wait until the morning when we're really clear on the final situation on the two boys as to where we stand."
England will look for safe passage into the Round of 16 by beating Czech Republic on Tuesday. The Three Lions currently the No.2 spot in Group D despite being tied on four points with their opponents who have a goal advantage.
