Luis Suárez has sent text messages to club-mates at Liverpool confirming he will be fit to play against England at the World Cup finals, despite the forward having required arthroscopic surgery on a knee injury in Montevideo last week.

The Uruguay striker suffered meniscus damage in his left knee while warming up for training with the national team before the tournament, with the injury apparently linked to a knock sustained in a challenge from Paul Dummett during Liverpool’s final Premier League game of the campaign, against Newcastle on 11 May. Suárez underwent MRI scans which confirmed the source of the sharp pain in the joint and underwent a minor operation last Thursday, leaving the Médica Uruguaya hospital in a wheelchair.

Wilmar Valdez, president of the Uruguayan football association, later claimed the procedure – performed by Dr Luis Francescoli, brother of the former Uruguay striker Enzo – had been “a success” and the team doctor, Alberto Pan, confirmed that the player is “evolving well” in his recovery.

Uruguay open their campaign against Costa Rica on 14 June, with Pan suggesting he could not offer “absolute certainty” that the 27-year-old will be fit and available for that game, but the player himself is confident he will be available to take on England in São Paulo in their second Group D fixture on 19 June.

Suárez has five Liverpool club-mates in Roy Hodgson’s full squad – Steven Gerrard, Jordan Henderson, Glen Johnson, Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling – with Jon Flanagan on the standby list and the Uruguayan has been in contact with them, offering an indication he will be fit for the game at the Arena de Sao Paulo. England will prepare for that awkward fixture in anticipation of confronting Suárez alongside the Paris Saint-Germain forward Edinson Cavani. Recovery times for meniscus repairs typically range from three to 10 weeks. “Luis is very positive,” said Pan. “I never heard a negative expression and he says it is better every day. Suárez is painless [and] is working on fitness.”

Gerrard had suggested over the weekend that, while he retains sympathy for his club-mate, it would benefit England if he was unavailable for the match. Asked if he had been in touch with Suárez, Henderson said: “Yeah, of course. Everybody is obviously disappointed for Luis, people that know him– maybe not us – because he is a big player for Uruguay. I gave him a text to see if he is doing all right and wished him good luck with whatever he has got to have done.

“He is a fighter and come maybe the first or the second game in the World Cup, I am sure he will be ready and raring to go. But it’s not just all about Luis. Obviously he is outstanding but they’ve got other good players and a very good team, so we’ll look at different ways and options of how to deal with that and counteract that. We’ll just focus on what we’ve got to do, but first and foremost is against Italy and that’s all we’ve got to focus on.”

England’s players trained at St George’s Park on Tuesday, with Leighton Baines absent for personal reasons and James Milner sitting out the session with a cold, before the friendly against Peru on Friday. The Manchester United defender Phil Jones has returned to full training after his shoulder problem but is unlikely to be risked before the games against Honduras and Ecuador in Miami next week. Hodgson is keen to give time to all his outfield players in the warm-up fixtures.

The squad arrive at their base in Rio de Janeiro on 8 June with the Football Association unperturbed that out-of-date food had been seized by health inspectors from the team’s Royal Tulip hotel. A statement from the consumer protection authority, Procon, confirmed that 2.362kg of “unusable butter, Parma ham and salmon” had been seized at the base in São Conrado, with the hotel also “fined for not providing condoms to guests”.

“The England chef has visited the Royal Tulip hotel several times and is happy with the cleanliness of the facilities,” said an FA spokesman. “He will also closely supervise all the players’ food intake.” Procon also found 25kg of pasta, shrimp, salmon and butter was unfit for consumption at Italy’s World Cup base, the hotel Portobello, along with 24kg of food that did not specify an expiry date.