New Uefa rule stops England bringing in Luke Shaw for Leighton Baines

Roy Hodgson has fallen foul of new Uefa regulations which demand national federations submit match-day squads the day before a qualifying game after the governing body rejected a late request to replace the injured Leighton Baines in the England party.

The Everton full-back hurt his hamstring early in the national team's final training session at St George's Park yesterday and will sit out today's Euro 2016 qualifier against Slovenia and Tuesday's friendly against Scotland at Parkhead. England had already opted to omit Luke Shaw, the third left-back in their original 26-man party, from the trimmed 23-player party registered with Uefa by the 11am cut-off, a new regulation brought in before this qualification campaign, and a subsequent attempt to have him reinstated in the wake of Baines's withdrawal was rejected.

“I knew about the rule and, therefore, I gave my squad in before 11am to be sent to Uefa,” explained Hodgson, whose morning training session had been put back by half an hour and therefore started on the deadline. “I was rather hoping that, because it was only 20 minutes after the event and we went straight on to [Uefa], they’d show sympathy for our request. But they said the rule is clear. After 11am, when you’ve put 23 names in, you can’t change it. I was going to play Leighton in this game and then send him home, so it is a blow. With Leighton going down, it would have been good for us to have Luke on the bench.”

Baines is the third withdrawal from the current squad, following Michael Carrick (groin) and Andros Townsend (ankle) in returning to his club for treatment. Arsenal's Kieran Gibbs, who started against San Marino last month, will begin the game at Wembley in the older man's stead with Shaw, who has played a limited part in training this week given his own concerns over a groin injury, to earn his fourth cap at Parkhead.

Impressive start

Southampton’s Nathaniel Clyne will make his debut at right-back after an impressive start to the season, with Raheem Sterling fit and fresh enough to start the game. “Raheem has been excellent all week,” Hodgson said.

England have not trained at Wembley and there remain serious concerns, both within the hosts’ camp and the visiting Slovenia staff, over the standard of the pitch. Wembley hosted an NFL game between Jacksonville Jaguars and Dallas Cowboys last Sunday, with the stadium’s managing director, Roger Maslin, admitting the turf would “not be of the very highest standard” for the qualifier. – Guardian service