Ismaila Sarr was not called up for international duty for Senegal because Watford made it clear he was injured and needed to stay behind for further treatment.

The forward limped off in the second half of last Saturday’s game at QPR with a tight hamstring, and didn’t feature in either of the week’s two home games.

Senegal will play two games against Mozambique in the coming week, but Sarr has not travelled and instead will be at London Colney to work on his injury.

“He didn’t make today obviously and that’s an ongoing issue,” said head coach Chris Wilder, yesterday.

“I think there’s been a conversation between the club from a medical point of view with the Senegal federation, explaining it’s best for him to stay here and receive treatment.”

With Wilder playing 3-5-2 while Sarr has been sidelined, the question is where does he fit when he has recovered from his injury?

“He can play up front at the top of the pitch as a striker or as a number 10,” Wilder said.

“If he’s going to be the player that everybody expects him to be, and play at the highest level as a forward, you’ve got to play in the pitch and out the pitch.

“You’ve got to have pace, you’ve got to have touch, you’ve got to score. From his point of view it won’t do him any harm to play down the middle.

“We’re not unbelievably set on things. We’ll keep looking at the formation to see what works the best.

“He’s been a big player here and hopefully he’ll be a big player in the last eight games.”

Wilder said that the international break is not really ideal.

“Not when I’ve got seven or eight missing on international duty, it’s quite difficult,” said.

“Everybody thinks you have this golden international break and a period where you can work with the team.

“I’m going to have seven or eight players come back on the Thursday before our next game, from all different parts of the world.

“Usually the international players are your starters as well.

“We’ll try and get as much work into the players that we have here as we can do. But it is quite difficult and I think that always gets overlooked.

“The breaks are there in the calendar so you have to deal with them, and accept them.

“Hopefully the players will come back healthy and in good shape. The club will have had this problem over a long period because they have talented players.

“There’s an Under-21s game on Monday that a few of the boys will be playing in, so I’ll be going along to look at that.

“We’ll give the boys a couple of days off as well, but we’ll also be putting a lot of work into them.”

In terms of those players who are going to be away on international duty, Imrân Louza’s Morocco have a home game with Brazil (Saturday March 25, 10pm KO UK time) before travelling to Spain to play Peru (Tuesday March 28, 10.30pm KO UK time).

Midfielders Leandro Bacuna and Ismaël Koné will be on opposite sides as Curaçao host Canada (Sunday March 26, 2am KO UK time). Bacuna’s Curaçao will then visit Argentina (Tuesday March 28, TBC KO) while Koné’s Canada play Honduras (Wednesday March 29, 1am KO UK time).

Ryan Porteous will hope to add to his one Scotland cap in games against Cyprus (Saturday March 25, 2pm KO) and Spain (Tuesday March 28, 7.45pm KO), while fellow defender Craig Cathcart’s Northern Ireland are set to meet San Marino (Thursday March 23, 7.45pm KO) and Finland (Sunday March 26, 7.45pm KO).

Henrique Araújo has been selected by Portugal Under-21s, who travel to Romania (Friday March 24, 5pm KO UK time) and then play a home game against Norway (Tuesday March 28, 7pm KO UK time).

There is a Wales Under-18 call-up for defender George Abbott, who will hope to feature in a double-header against Scotland (Thursday March 23 and Sunday March 26).

Young goalkeeper Jonathan Macaulay is on standby for England Under-18s, who play Croatia (Wednesday March 22), Belgium (Friday March 24) and Switzerland (Monday March 27).