Roy Hodgson Fearful of Virus Spreading Through England Squad Ahead of Qualifier

There may be a subplot of England's World Cup qualifying match with Ukraine that will be invisible to the naked eye.

Ahead of the match, which will be England's second qualifier of their campaign to reach the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, the Telegraph reports a virus has affected two players and threatened to spread to the rest of the squad.

The first problem occurred with Chelsea forward Daniel Sturridge, who complained of a stomach cramp. As a result, he missed Monday's training session and was isolated from the rest of the squad.

The issue then became an even bigger issue when Arsenal winger Theo Walcott was sent home from the squad after falling "violently ill" with the virus.

England coach Roy Hodgson responded to the losses by making three new call-ups: Tottenham's Jake Livermore, Southampton's Adam Lallana and Liverpool's 17-year-old winger, Raheem Sterling. The match could be big in terms of Sterling, who still has the option to represent Jamaica at this point.

Hodgson spoke about the matter and voiced his concern about the issue spreading to more members of the squad:

"

Theo has picked up some sort of virus,” Hodgson said. “He was quite violently ill. He trained fully Sunday and was as fit as a fiddle, then he was violently sick this morning and had to be sent home.

Daniel Sturrudge (sic) trained on Sunday with stomach cramps but today woke up with the same stomach cramps, and the doctor advised us to keep him out of training and see how things are.

The doctor is quite confident he will be OK, but I can only hope nothing is going round the squad. That was why we were quite keen to get Theo home as soon as possible and keep Daniel away from the squad.

I have to hope it’s just an isolated case with the two players. But we’ve brought in three players who interest us for the future, and that’ll be a contingency plan and we’ll fill our quote on the bench. That’s the thinking.

"

As for the two players hit with the bug thus far, neither started against Moldova on Friday, but Walcott did come off the bench and provide an assist.

Still, the potential of such a damaging stomach virus spreading through the squad is a scary thought for a qualifier that carries so much weight in deciding who goes to Brazil.

Let's hope this is a non-issue in the match.

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