Neville on course for comeback

Gary Neville continued his comeback from a calf injury in today’s England training session ahead of Saturday’s World Cup quarter final with Portugal.

The Manchester United defender trained for the first time yesterday since suffering the setback a fortnight ago in the final session before the group match with Trinidad and Tobago.

Sven-Goran Eriksson had wanted to see if the 31-year-old suffered any reaction before deciding to include the player in his starting line-up against the Portuguese in Gelsenkirchen.

But Neville was back out on the training ground with his team-mates and looking in good shape for the last-eight battle.

Neville is especially keen to play in this tournament after missing the entire 2002 World Cup with a broken metatarsal.

After being laid low with a hamstring problem in the build up to Germany, Neville featured in England’s opening game against Paraguay only to suffer the calf problem four days later.

Eriksson had the luxury of all 22 remaining members of his squad being put through their paces.