Carrick: England can cope

Michael Carrick has insisted that England will cope without injured strikers Michael Owen and Emile Heskey. Wayne Rooney is due a return for England and Dean Ashton continues to impress for West Ham, giving McLaren some options up front.

Carrick commented on the current situation, "It's typical England really - everything seems to be running smoothly and then something comes up.

"We have two lads injured who played the last game and were fantastic, but we have Wayne Rooney coming back and he's as good as anyone.

"The quality in the squad is there and the competition is there, so if anyone is unfortunate enough to get injured or suspended, people can step in and do just as good a job."

Carrick has recently lost his England place to Gareth Barry, and spoke of McLaren's preference for Barry, "Of course I want to be playing and I don't want people to be playing in front of me, but Gazza's [Barry] a great lad and when you're not in the team you still want the lads to do well."