Rio Ferdinand must silence his doubters, says Oliver Kay

Times Football Correspondent discusses the key issues ahead of England's World Cup qualifying match against Belarus. He talks to Ben Smith.

How important is it for Rio Ferdinand to have a blemish-free game tonight?
He needs a good game to put the current question marks over his form and fitness to bed. If, for example, he makes another serious mistake that leads to a goal then it will mean the questions surrounding his form will drag onto the friendly against Brazil and the microscope will be on him over the next few weeks and months.

Ferdinand needs to remind people - the media and supporters rather than Fabio Capello - what a good player he is and that although these mistakes happen they remain the exception rather than the rule. When the World Cup starts he has got to be one of the first names on the teamsheet.

Do England need an in-form Ferdinand to have any chance of performing well in South Africa next summer?
It is easy to over-hype our players in England but if you look at the past five years, there haven't been many better defenders in world football.

For people to suddenly question whether Ferdinand should make way for Matthew Upson is a bit nonsensical. He should be as close as it gets to an automatic selection. Having said that if he is making mistakes on a consistent basis then questions do have to be asked and alternatives may have to be looked at. But Ferdinand remains a top-class player and I don't see a crisis there.

It is a big night for Michael Owen and Gabriel Agbonlahor for very different reasons. How do you see that situation unfolding?

Michael Owen will be one of 20 or 30 players watching from an executive box at Wembley, having been invited there by Capello as a "we're thinking of you" gesture. In a way it serves as a reminder of just how far Owen's star has fallen. He will be there with people like David Bentley, who struggles to get on the Tottenham bench these days, David Wheater and Joe Lewis, the Peterborough United goalkeeper. It will be a very strange experience for Owen.

If Agbonlahor comes in and takes his opportunity, Owen will be there to witness his international prospects diminishing in front of his eyes. On the other hand if England's strikers don't perform, Owen will be thinking their limitations have been exposed and that he can get back in.

It will be interesting to see if Capello speaks to those players he has invited along either before or after the game. That would be a good gesture and I am sure it is something he is thinking about it.

If Wayne Rooney, Emile Heskey and Jermain Defoe are all but on the plane, does that leave Carlton Cole, Peter Crouch, Agbonlahor and Owen fighting for two places?
There is a possibility that Capello will only take four strikers because he has Theo Walcott, who he could take as a fifth striker. That might allow him to take Aaron Lennon and David Beckham, which would give him a few options.

We have understood in the past that Owen and Defoe are competing for one place. On the evidence of the first month of the season that has been no contest. But if, and it is a very big if, Owen starts scoring goals regularly for Manchester United, then he could force a rethink.

It is not realistic or sensible to look at one goal against Manchester City, albeit an extremely well-taken goal, as a reason why Owen deserves to go to the World Cup. That goal is pretty much the sum total of what he has done in 2009, so he has got an awful lot of work to do.

Will tonight be a chance for Capello to put England's plan B into practice?
England will line up in a 4-4-2 formation but there will be no Rooney or Steven Gerrard and perhaps no Heskey. For that reason it is probably a long way off the real plan B. It will almost be a shadow England team, but it is an opportunity for people like Crouch and Agbonlahor to show that they deserve to be on the plane to South Africa.

It could be an interesting night for Ben Foster. What does he have to prove tonight?
It has not been confirmed that Foster will start but I understand that may be the case. He wasn't in the original squad because of the injury he picked up in the warm-up for Manchester United's game against Sunderland.

Capello didn't even call him up when Paul Robinson dropped out and yet now he has the opportunity to play because of Robert Green's suspension and David James's injury.

It is a big opportunity but there will be a lot of pressure on him. In a lot of the big games he has played, both for England and United, he has made mistakes. So he has to prove he is worthy of being the third goalkeeper, let alone England's No 1, as some people believed he should have been less than a month ago.