Carson set to keep his place for England's crunch Croatia Wembley clash

The England goalkeeper, left out of the team for the friendly against Austria on Friday, fears he will be overlooked for the country's biggest match since the World Cup quarter-final with Portugal after an error-ridden training session on Monday.

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Scott Carson won his first cap in the 1-0 win in Vienna and England head coach Steve McClaren may take the bold move of retaining the keeper, currently on loan at Aston Villa from Liverpool, for the 90,000 sell-out in the new stadium.

Carson's England team-mates were raving about his performance in training on Monday and would welcome his inclusion.

David Beckham, who appeared short of match fitness against Austria, is expected to be told that he will win his 99th cap with a place on the right of a five-man England midfield.

Croatia coach Slaven Bilic second-guessed McClaren by confidently predicting that England, who need a point to be assured of a place at next summer's finals, will play just one striker.

Bilic said: 'They will play 4-1-4-1. I'm sure England will try to push forward, but they will do it cautiously.'

England's players trained at London Colney on Monday as they began preparing for the final qualifying game and sources claimed Carson looked the most confident of the three keepers — David James of Portsmouth is the other one.

Robinson was determined to bury the memory of his disastrous air-kick during the 2-0 defeat in Zagreb last October by playing his part in England's return in Group E, but there are no longer any guarantees he will start.

Robinson has had an up-and-down season so far at club level but has kept three clean sheets in the past four games under new Spurs manager Juande Ramos, who replaced Martin Jol.

While McClaren has already refused to confirm that the Tottenham keeper will be selected against Croatia, the rest of his team is coming together.

Although Peter Crouch, who starts up front, admitted that the team did little work on their formation yesterday, he is confident that they will secure the point they need to qualify.

Crouch, who scored his 13th goal for his country in Austria with a header from a Beckham corner, said: 'It is time to show how good we can be. We definitely believed that we could do well at the last World Cup. We all believe we have the capability to go and win the tournament next summer.'

They will have to qualify for the Finals first, but Croatia appear increasingly confident of pulling off a shock victory at Wembley.

They arrive in London on Tuesday morning and Bilic's goal is to become the first manager to secure victory at the new Wembley in a qualification game.

His chief scout Goran Vucevic said: 'I watched England play in Vienna and they didn't show much development from when we beat them in Zagreb.

'The one thing we must do is stop Beckham. He can put the ball on Crouch's eyebrows and that can be dangerous.'

Providing England complete the job, all talk of McClaren's departure is likely to cease.

In the build-up to last weekend's drama, the players lined up to defend their coach, who most pundits felt would be out of a job by the end of this week.

And Crouch has added his voice to those who feel the former Middlesbrough manager is the right man to take England forward.

'We all enjoy working with Steve,' he said. 'He is fantastic on the training ground and all the players are behind him.

'He has got us into a position where we can qualify and if we get through, everyone is confident we can have a great tournament.'