Capello happy with Rooney

The Manchester United forward ended a five-month wait for a goal when he converted a penalty against West Ham last weekend, and the Italian was glad to see his talisman on the scoresheet.

"I monitored him during the last game that he played against West Ham," said Capello.

"He's good, he's back and I'm happy because he scored a goal. Rooney runs a lot around the pitch, he's free to move where he decides to go.

“Rooney will play on Friday in style."

Capello is closing on finalising his starting XI, with Everton defender Phil Jagielka set to start despite suffering with an ankle injury in recent days.

"The keeper, (Joe) Hart, Rooney, Steve (Gerrard), (Gareth) Barry, (Ashley) Cole, (Glen) Johnson, Jagielka, more or less. I know 10 or 11, with a little doubt about one," Capello confirmed.

"The training was really good, the players are okay and some problems we had in the last two days are getting better.

"(Jagielka) is fit, he trained well, there is a little bit of pain but I think for he will be 100 per cent.

"I'm not concerned but I know that the central defenders will play for the first time together. I hope they will be really focusing every moment of the game and I hope Cole and Johnson will help these two players, and also the midfield."

Skipper Steven Gerrard called on England to make a statement of intent in Friday night’s match.

England have still to shake off the lingering disappointment of their abject World Cup display but will improve their hopes of redemption with a good display in front of an expectant home crowd at Wembley.

"The players and the manager realise that we are under pressure at the moment, which is normal after underperforming at the World Cup," said Gerrard.

"It'll really help if we put in a good performance and get the maximum points. Then we can obviously take the confidence from that into the Switzerland game on Tuesday.

"It's very important that we make a statement and show that we want to win the group and qualify comfortably.

"We qualified for the World Cup playing good, attacking football. If we can perform at that level I'm sure we'll get out of this group in similar fashion.

"The difficult thing is there's slightly more pressure on us this time around and we have to cope with that.

"We've certainly got the exciting players in the squad to get off to a good start."