Rio Ferdinand plays for his England place

England defender Rio Ferdinand will earn his 76th cap today against Belarus, but has been put on notice that his recent errors for the national team could put his place in jeopardy. The Manchester United centre half was at fault during the drab defeat to the Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk on Saturday, letting through Artem Milevskiy for the incident that saw Rob Green sent off and a penalty conceded.

It compounded his mistake against Holland in a friendly in August, when he didn't pick up Dirk Kuyt and gave away the opening goal in Amsterdam. Ferdinand will be one of the few regular starters in an experimental line-up that Fabio Capello will be putting out for the final qualifying match of the campaign at Wembley tonight. The Italian talked up his experienced defender yesterday.

"I spoke with Rio, on Monday and this morning, and I will do so again on the day of the match," said Capello. "I asked him what happened [in the build-up to the sending-off]. I spoke with him about the moment, and about different things. But just about that last game. He's a good man, a big man, and an important player for England and United. He will play tomorrow. He needs to play. The experience Rio has will be very important for us, and I have big confidence in him."

Other changes from the weekend will see Ferdinand's club colleague Ben Foster make his competitive debut, while up-front the pacy Aston Villa striker Gabriel Agbonlahor will start alongside Peter Crouch in a new-look forward line. Capello said that he wants to try out what he called his "plans B and C" for the national team.

"I want to see Agbonlahor and the other players," the Italian was reported as saying in the Guardian. "I will do a lot of 'experiments'. We need a different plan, and a different style sometimes. We have played more or less the same style in all the games we've played. Sometimes, during the friendly games, we've changed it but we need to practise other styles. I want to see some players in this game playing in a different set-up. We will need to play other styles, to have a plan A, a plan B and a plan C. The games before the World Cup will be very important for me to learn about the players and the different styles we can use." ·