Frank Lampard has been ruled out of England's Euro 2008 qualifier against Andorra tonight. The Chelsea midfielder was expected to play despite suffering a cracked bone in his wrist in training on Monday.

However, it has now been discovered the injury is worse than was first thought, leaving Lampard with no chance of facing the part-timers in Barcelona this evening.

It is thought Lampard will return to England when possible to ensure he gets the speediest treatment from Chelsea's medical staff. At this stage it is not known exactly how long Lampard will be out.

Although the FA have not confirmed his absence from the game tonight it has been established from an impeccable source that he has a fracture low down on his arm and has also ruptured all the ligaments in his wrist.

It is believed the damage was done after the 29-year-old got in the way of a Wayne Rooney shot. How ironic it would be if that incident led to Lampard missing key games in the title run-in.

The former West Ham player is due to play at Watford on Saturday and Chelsea will be keen to discover whether he will be cleared to play at Vicarage Road with a much heavier cast than he was wearing in training yesterday.

It puts McClaren in a strange situation given that there had been widespread calls for Lampard to be axed for tonight's qualifier following his poor performance in Israel on Saturday.

However, it had been expected McClaren would partner Lampard with Steven Gerrard and Owen Hargreaves would be the man to step down, McClaren having presumably decided that Hargreaves' holding midfield skills were not required against a team that conceded 19 goals in four games so far.

McClaren must now choose between the Bayern Munich man and Manchester United's Michael Carrick, whose greater passing skills could just give him the edge.