Former Arsenal and England defender Martin Keown believes England's best chances of coping with a depleted defence is to let their full-backs push forward.

Fabio Capello's men are without one of their best centre-halves in Rio Ferdinand and following the injury to his back-up, Ledley King, will deploy Jamie Carragher alongside John Terry in central defence.

Keown believes a lack of pace will worry that pair who may be turned and beaten to the ball if they come up against speedy strikers and is concerned they will become too tight in their positions.

So to combat that, he poses that left-back Ashley Cole and right-back Glen Johnson push forward and midfielder Gareth Barry pushes back to help the centre-backs when that occurs.

'I was at the 2002 World Cup and saw Brazil's full-backs surge forward,' he wrote in his column for the Daily Mail.

'They had Gilberto Silva dropping deep to create a back three when the full-backs bombed on.

'We should adopt the same approach as Cole and Johnson are excellent going forward and we now have Gareth Barry back in the fold.

'When I played at Arsenal alongside Tony Adams, the partnership worked because we looked out for each other.

'It takes time to develop a partnership, but I think Terry and Carragher will get that time as neither Algeria nor Slovenia offer too much up front.'