• Manager fears players may try to mislead him over fitness • Jamie Vardy looks likely to miss quarter-final with Sweden

Gareth Southgate has said he will have to adopt “a racehorse trainer’s eye” before England’s World Cup quarter-final against Sweden to make sure none of his players mislead him about their fitness.

As the team prepare to fly to Samara for Saturday’s game, Jamie Vardy’s hopes of playing any part are looking increasingly bleak and a number of other players, among them Kyle Walker and Ashley Young, are being closely monitored by England’s medical staff after Tuesday’s victory against a Colombia side described by John Stones as “probably the dirtiest team I’ve ever come up against.”

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Vardy has not given up hope of being included on the bench but the groin injury he picked up as a substitute against Colombia in Moscow was enough to rule him out of the penalty shootout and he was unable to train with the rest of the players on Thursday.

Dele Alli has not suffered any recurrence of his thigh problem but Southgate compared the dressing room after Tuesday’s match to a scene from M.A.S.H and the England manager knows from experience that, at this stage of the competition, there is a danger of players declaring themselves fit when they are patently not.

“The lads would always be prepared to risk injury for these games but that can’t be at the detriment of the performance,” Southgate said.

“Oddly enough, when it gets to these games, they’re not always as honest as they might be about how fit they are.

“So you’ve got to have a racehorse trainer’s eye at times to sort that out. It’s not straightforward because we won’t see everything, but we’ll have a feel from what they’re reporting and the way they’re running, and then we can try to make the best decisions we can.” Walker has already declared himself fit, explaining that it was nothing more than cramp and “the nervous energy went straight to my calves”.

Play Video 1:12 John Stones: Colombia were dirtiest team I've played against – video

Young had a sore ankle but Southgate sounded optimistic both players would be available.

“We’ve no reason to believe they’re serious issues. But there are two or three, in particular, who we have to assess quite closely and see exactly what level they’re at.

“Again, because we have good players available to come in. If we’ve got players who are 75% the guys who haven’t been in the team deserve to come in and be at 100%.”