And not just because the fans need to find someone else to boo

John Terry and Ashley Cole are both returning to Chelsea after being ruled out of Wednesday’s game in Belarus and while Cole may have made a dreadful mistake against Kazakhstan, his hamstring injury is bad news for England.

England have won each of the last seven competitive games that Cole has started. In the last two qualifiers he missed, first Joleon Lescott covered for him away to Russia and England were beaten 2-1 and then Wayne Bridge tried to fill the void against Croatia at Wembley when England fell to a disastrous 3-2 defeat.

Considering those two players are Fabio Capello’s only alternatives in Minsk on Wednesday, it’s a shame Lampard and Gerrard still don’t have a clue how to play together because Gareth Barry filling in at left-back might be the only way to break this curse and avoid disaster.