First test for the ‘renovated’ England squad after a dismal WC campaign, and it looks easy enough a test with it being at home and against a relatively out of form opponent who have not been doing too well in either their friendlies or in their WC qualifying campaign before that.

England won their most recent friendly (vs Hungary) by 2-1, but it was far from a convincing performance against a team we rate to be on the same level of Bulgaria currently. The English fans though are the major driving force behind the team and they never let the players down, although the players themselves let the fans down every so often.

John Terry & Frank Lampard (amongst others) are the most notable absentees on the English side, but one should think they won’t be missed. Still, some strange selections made by Capello one must say.

We will keep away from this game from a betting point of view. There is no guarantee that England can win big here. Looking at the Man Utd squad we would be inclined to state Berbatov is on a better form than Rooney, but -fortunately- there’s only one Berbatov in Bulgaria (and one Rooney in the English team).