Charlton Athletic Online

Luke Young will tonight become Charlton's most capped England player when he gains his sixth cap in the final World Cup qualifier versus Poland. He will beat the previous club record held by Chris Powell, who won five England caps during the early days of Sven Goran Eriksson's reign as England coach.

Luke initially got his chance during the England tour to the USA during June 2005, mainly due to injuries to other players. He was not part of the squad originally selected to travel, but forced his way into the touring party, and eventually onto the pitch during both matches against the United States and Colombian teams. Subsequently, he has played in the last three England matches against Wales, Northern Ireland and Austria.

Luke has got better in each of his games for England, and is now showing confidence in his own abilities and relying on other, more established, stars less. He is playing in a very similar way to that which he does for Charlton, week in, week out. He has good pace, isn't afraid to tackle, covers the centre backs well, gets forward to support the attack whenever he can, and has been getting into goal-scoring positions over the last couple of weeks too.

The media are implying that Luke is still very much a (right) back up to the injured Gary Neville, but it is still good to know that Luke is in Sven's future plans, and that he will be available for the World Cup in Germany next Summer should he be required. He has not let England down yet, and there is no reason to suggest that he will in the next few months.

The Charlton captain should enjoy his match tonight; there is no pressure on the team (unlike in other recent matches) as qualification is assured. The pride associated with finishing top of the qualifying group will count for little this evening, although both teams would like to perform well and win.

Darren Bent will be hoping to finally get on to the pitch for the full England team, after spending the last four games on the bench. With changes having been made to the team due to injury (Gerrard and Campbell out, Ferdinand and King in), suspension (Beckham out and Rooney back in), and choice/formation (Crouch out and Wright-Phillips in), Sven needed some continuity, and will therefore have Owen as captain up front. Hopefully though, Darren will get at least thirty minutes playing time for either a tiring Owen or the tiresome Rooney. If Sven decides to play Crouch, or Defoe, as substitute in preference to Dazza, then it would seem that scoring goals regularly in the Premiership is simply not good enough for England.

In other international week news:
Jerome Thomas scored in his second match for England Under 21's last night - he tapped in the second goal of a 4-1 victory against Poland's youngsters.

Matt Holland will be playing for Ireland tonight in their must win World Cup match versus Switzerland. Victory will get the Irish a play-off place at least, and possibly a direct route to the finals if other results go well. The atmosphere in Dublin will be electric!

A similar situation for Dennis Rommedahl's Denmark, who need a win tonight and Turkey to falter in their own game to have a chance of a play-off place. I hope they do it as I'm off to Copenhagen for the weekend and it will be a far happier place if they have made the play-offs!