England rift reports surface

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Rustenburg - England held what could be their next-to-last World Cup training session on Monday amid further reports of a rift within the squad.

The latest problems are fallout from comments by ex-captain John Terry that some players had a meeting to discuss grievances with team management. There were reports in the British media on Monday that Terry's team-mates had told him to keep quiet.

Terry insisted at a news conference on Sunday that there was no unrest within the squad, but that was before his public comments.

Terry told reporters at an official news conference on Sunday that the players would have a meeting with Capello to discuss what went wrong in the game against Algeria, one of England's worst World Cup performances.

But he also said that, after the game in Cape Town, some of the players talked over the match between themselves over a beer.

Although he did not reveal exactly what they said, media reports said they decided to tell Capello the team needed to play with a 4-5-1 instead of 4-4-2 formation with Rooney up front on his own and Joe Cole added to the midfield.

The reports said that the rest of the players were furious with Terry for revealing details of the meeting, which appeared to undermine Capello's running of the team.

When the players had their training session on Monday, two days ahead of the Slovenia game, there seemed no sign of any discord during the 15-minute session the media was allowed to observe.

England need to beat Slovenia at Port Elizabeth on Wednesday to stay in the competition after draws with the United States and Algeria. England players were booed by their own fans after the 0-0 draw against Algeria in Cape Town.

Because heavy rain has left the playing surface at the Nelson Mandela Stadium in a poor condition, England and Slovenia may not be able to train on it on Tuesday. England have asked FIFA if they can stay behind at their training camp in Rustenburg to hold their training session there and fly to Port Elizabeth later in the day.

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