He did very good work on Saturday."But if you look at some games, like Greece [in October 2001] he almost took the team on his shoulders I don't think it's fair to expect that every time To say he shouldn't be in the team or the squad That's very hard. He confirmed yesterday that the 29-year-old would be his captain at the World Cup finals next summer and launched a defence of Beckham's credentials after Saturday's muted performance."I think he still is an extremely good footballer player and very important for us," Eriksson said. "I feel embarrassed always having to answer questions like 'Should be in the team? Should he be in the squad? Should he be the captain?' He's in the squad, he's in the team and he's the captain - that's it I think we have extremely high expectations of him. To forget the result and just entertain - what's that?"Subjecting Azerbaijan's defeat to Poland on Saturday to his own particular brand of analysis, Eriksson said the match had been an "unreal" one in which "everything went well for Poland" and the opposite for the away side. The same England team that began Saturday's victory over Northern Ireland will start tonight, although Eriksson conceded that should victory look certain he would give an opportunity to other members of the squad.As long as his side take three points tonight, there will be little capable of stirring Eriksson's tranquillity barring another attack on the suitability of his captain, David Beckham, to continue leading the side. I will tell them to defend well which is always one of the most important things in international football."I don't think you can separate entertainment and winning.

But I don't know any manager who tells the players before the match, 'Go out and entertain' That's not football. Because if you don't try to play good football you will not win many games It's not like you can win all the time and not entertain I think they are very close to each other. Every manager in the world tries to attack well, defend well and win football games. I will not tell the players to go out and score lots of goals.

"It's important we play good football, important to win the game It's important to keep distance from Poland. What he did was change the course of the game utterly with a few moments of stunning confidence. He played the ball up in the air, effortlessly controlling it on its return, and in one urgent move wrong-footed half of the Turkish defence For a little while the crowd was stunned. Then, on delayed reaction, they roared.They roared at something that was utterly exceptional. Some said the ultra-cautious Sven Goran Eriksson was rash to play Rooney that night, but whatever else is said about England's head coach no one will be able to draw more satisfaction from any spectacular performance by his striking pair tonight.The first thing he said to Owen was that he was an automatic selection for England, thus ending more than a year of frustration and bizarre rejection.

Owen was a Liverpool substitute at the League Cup final when they met. When Eriksson first saw Rooney he simply held up his hands to the heavens. It was a proper gesture and the chances are he will make a similar one tonight.. Few occasions have shown up the conservative nature of Sven Goran Eriksson better than his announcement yesterday that he would settle for a 1-0 victory against goalkeeper Dimitry Kramarenko and an Azerbaijan team who have become the most generous side in international football. While the nation has scented blood at St James' Park tonight, the England coach sought to patch up the wounds done to David Beckham's reputation last week. The England coach first tried to play down the weaknesses of an opposition beaten 8-0 by Poland on Saturday and, when that failed to extinguish the appetite for goals, he expounded a football philosophy in which entertainment was a by-product rather than a priority.Eriksson admitted that his team were "super-favourites" for their World Cup qualifier, but he also acknowledged that he "could not win".

A thrashing, he admitted, will only confirm that Azerbaijan are as weak as suspected, anything less will be treated as a failure - a summary which shows at the very least that Eriksson has learned something about the mentality of his adopted country.The serious nature of a pre-training team talk in the centre-circle last night seemed to suggest Eriksson will not allow his players to be misguided by a national mood that this is a mismatch on the scale of the San Marino match in 1993. So it was a relief that one manager had abandoned the usual pre-match secrecy: the Azerbaijan coach, Carlos Alberto, did not just give out his starting line-up, he helped with the spellings."In one way I would be happy with 1-0, if we created 10 chances and just scored one goal, OK," Eriksson said. "A Moroccan, a Thai and a tapas bar have opened since Christmas," says Crace.Big houses, with price-tags of £750,000-plus, are returning to single occupancy, and young professionals are clamouring to snap up apartments in new-build blocks or impressive conversions, like Britannic Park in the former headquarters of Britannic Assurance. Not to mention bars of every description and restaurants of many nationalities.