Gary Neville to England's warm-up against Jamaica

MANCHESTER, England, June 2: Defender Gary Neville will miss England's final World Cup warm-up game against Jamaica tomorrow due to a hamstring problem.

''Gary is not training with us or playing tomorrow. Monday he will start again,'' England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson told a news conference today.

''But it's only protective, he has a small problem with one leg but it's nothing to worry about. He will be fully fit on Monday.'' Neville missed training for a second day today, having come off at halftime in England's 3-1 friendly win over Hungary on Tuesday at Old Trafford. He was replaced in his position by Jamie Carragher, who is expected to deputise against Jamaica.

Eriksson has no straight replacement in his squad at right back, meaning that Carragher or Owen Hargreaves would have to fill in if the problem continued until their Group B opener against Paraguay on June 10.

Eriksson is also monitoring striker Michael Owen on his return from a long-term foot injury and said there was no guarantee he could last the whole game tomorrow.

Owen made his first start of the year in last week's 2-1 defeat by Belarus in a 'B' international and lasted only 65 minutes in Tuesday's friendly win over Hungary.

''Hopefully he will do 90 minutes or almost 90 minutes this time,'' Eriksson said. ''It would be very good if he could...but it's not a guarantee today.'' ''I'm not worried about it. He did a very, very good session today, it was very intensive.'' After Paraguay, England go on to play Trinidad&Tobago and Sweden in Group B at the World Cup in Germany.

REUTERS