England vs Estonia preview: Roy Hodgson’s thoughts turn to glamour friendlies with qualification secured

It says something about the appetite for English football that the Football Association expects more than 80,000 fans will turn up at Wembley on Friday night for a qualifying game in a group England have already won against a nation ranked lower than Sudan, Iraq and the Faroe Islands.

Not since Fabio Capello’s England sailed through qualification for the 2010 World Cup finals with a game to spare has the procession to a tournament looked so easy with Roy Hodgson’s side having won Euro 2016 Group E with two games left. So much so that as the England manager considered a squad that is diminished by injuries, his thoughts were already turning to the two important prestige fixtures next month against France and Spain.

The Wembley crowd for the Estonia game will see Wayne Rooney presented with a commemorative golden boot for his 50th goal, but no chance of goal No 51 with the England captain out the game and Monday’s final qualifier against Lithuania in Vilnius. Even more senior players, including goalkeeper Joe Hart, will go home after the game as Hodgson balances his credit with the big clubs whom he will have to rely on next month for players.

Gary Cahill will captain the team in Rooney’s absence and Hodgson acknowledged that there are bigger fish to fry in the future. He knows that a qualifying group in which the biggest game was England’s away win over Switzerland in September last year – in the aftermath of the failure in Brazil – has not been a test of his players in the way that forthcoming friendlies against Spain, France, Germany and the Netherlands will be.

“We’ve got an awful lot of work to do against good quality opposition who will test us out to the ultimate extent,” Hodgson said. “Maybe they will bring out some flaws in our game that we didn’t always see in some of the games we play. But we’re ready for that. We’re not deluding ourselves. We can be rightly proud of the achievements since the World Cup. We don’t need to hide our light under the bush in that respect, but we know there are big games ahead.

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“I’m pleased the friendly games can be matches we can lose, which might see us sink even further down the [Fifa] rankings, rather than wins against teams which won’t teach us everything we need to learn. You must remember, we are putting an awful lot of responsibility on the shoulders of young men, Chris Smalling, Harry Kane, John Stones, who is not with us now.

“These are very exciting moments and players, but they are going to need these games, in particular, to get a real taste of what we need to be like if we are ever going to be successful in a major tournament.”

Kane will start his first competitive game for England, and with three goals in four caps, has a chance to establish himself further ahead of Daniel Sturridge’s putative return next month. Hodgson could not conceal an instinctive celebration in the directors’ box at White Hart Lane during the Manchester City game last week, when Kane scored his first league goal of the season.

“With Wayne out, he’s in pole position,” Hodgson said of Kane. Michael Carrick, who missed training, will start against Estonia, only his fifth cap in two years.

As for Cahill, it will be a respite from Chelsea’s poor form and criticism from Jose Mourinho in which he has been included. “We’ve had a very disappointing start to the season,” Cahill said. “It’s something we all want to address. When I get criticised, I have a determination to try and put it right, work hard and not start sulking about. He wasn’t happy with the way I was playing, along with a few others, and he has every right to let us know that.”