Darren Bent, Sol Campbell, Steven Gerrard and Owen Hargreaves have been ruled out of England's international against Germany at Wembley on Wednesday.

Gerrard and Hargreaves will miss out because of concerns over existing injuries. Gerrard fractured his toe in midweek playing for Liverpool against Toulouse, but he needed a pre-match injection in order to play in their controversial 1-1 draw with Chelsea at Anfield on Sunday.

England have two crucial European Championship qualifiers next month, meaning Gerrard will be given the green light to sit out Wednesday's match. "I need rest to be ready for the qualifiers in September," he said. "The sensible thing is to make sure you are ready for the big games."

Gerrard said the only chance he had of playing for England was if an X-ray on Monday showed the condition of his toe to have improved.

Hargreaves battled through the pain of a sore knee in Manchester United's 1-0 defeat to derby rivals Manchester City. But having dropped points at the weekend, Sir Alex Ferguson appears to want to have Hargreaves fully fit for coming matches, the Manchester United manager effectively ruling out the former Bayern Munich player from the midweek international.

"Owen Hargreaves is very painful in his knees," Ferguson said. "It was his first game and he will need a few days to recover. I don't think he'll be available for Wednesday."

Darren Bent, the Tottenham Hotspur striker, drops out because of a thigh problem and Sol Campbell, the Portsmouth centre-back, has a groin injury.

Steve McClaren, the England manager, is also waiting for a fitness report on John Terry, who returned to action from injury for Chelsea against Liverpool, and Michael Owen - who played 20 minutes for Newcastle United against Aston Villa on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Germany will also be are missing a string of top names, including Miroslav Klose, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Sami Khedira, Michael Ballack, Torsten Frings, Lukas Podolski and Mario Gomez.

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