Gareth Southgate has confirmed that England players will take the knee ahead of their opening World Cup match.

The Euro 2021 finalists take on Iran in their first game of the tournament on Monday (1pm) and all of the players other than James Maddison are set to be available for selection.

"In terms of player availability everybody's available bar James Maddison for tomorrow," said Southgate.

"It's a little bit early for Kyle Walker but he is training with the team, so that's ahead of where we thought he might be at this stage. Very positive.

"We're looking forward to this challenge and I've really liked the way the players have approached training this week."

On taking the knee, the England boss said: "We have discussed taking the knee. We feel we should. It's what we stand for as a team and have done for a long period of time.

"We understand in the Premier League that the clubs have decided to only do that for certain games, big occasions.

"We feel this is the biggest and we think it's a strong statement that will go around the world for young people, in particular, to see that inclusivity is very important."

Southgate continued: "Our challenge is to give our supporters a tournament that's memorable. We have taken them on fantastic journeys in our lives to tournaments.

"Our country is also going through a difficult spell - not the same as some of the other countries around the world. But we're in an economic recession and life has been difficult for a lot of our people so we want them to enjoy their football and have a journey with our team that brings some real happiness."

Captain Harry Kane admits England go into the tournament hungry for success, adding: "Whenever you go through a spell with club or country and when you haven't won for a little while, you're always that little bit more hungry to turn that around.

"We've had some difficult games in that period, we've played some really good teams and we did have some decent draws away from home, but ultimately we want to be winning games and the feeling of winning games is important.

"We've gone into a major tournament with that hunger. Iran are going to be really difficult, we know every game, every tournament will be difficult.

"But of course we back ourselves against any team and we know if we get it right tomorrow afternoon then we have a really good chance of winning.

"So it's down to us, we've done the preparation, it was a quick turnaround but we're looking forward to the tournament starting."

Southgate added: "We recognise the quality of the opposition. The group is very tight in terms of the world rankings so it's the hardest and at the beginning everyone has optimism and hope, so always the margins are close in the opening matches.

"We've navigated that well in our last two tournaments but both games were really tight and everybody wants to win the first game.

"The objective is to get out of the group, however you manage to do that, and that's our first objective."

Kane insists that England have made their desires over wearing the 'OneLove' rainbow armband clear.

FIFA confirmed on Saturday that its armbands would be worn as part of a partnership with United Nations agencies, and the Football Association is understood to be seeking clarity on whether those and the 'OneLove' version can be worn together.

While it respects the FIFA-UN initiative, the FA intends to continue supporting the 'OneLove' campaign, in a country where same-sex relationships are criminalised, even though the FA could be fined over the issue.

"I feel we've made it clear as a team and as an organisation that we want to wear the armband," said Kane.

"I know the FA are talking to FIFA and I'm sure by game time tomorrow they will have a decision. But I think we have made it clear that we want to wear it."