Preview: England vs. Denmark

England play the first of four international friendlies before the World Cup when Denmark visit Wembley on Wednesday night.

It is the final match before Roy Hodgson has to choose his squad for this summer's tournament in Brazil and he is expected to experiment with a near fully-fit pool of players.

The one area where Hodgson is short is defence, with Phil Jagielka, Phil Jones and Kyle Walker all missing through injury. Chris Smalling is expected to start alongside Gary Cahill at centre-back.

Everywhere else, Hodgson has options and could give the likes of Luke Shaw, Raheem Sterling, Adam Lallana and Ross Barkley starts to see if they can impress.

The visitors agonisingly missed out on the European qualification playoffs for Brazil as they were the second-placed team with the lowest points haul from the nine groups.

Morten Olsen can either view this as a chance to put his best XI up against England or tinker like opposite number Hodgson is expected to.

Premier League regulars Daniel Agger, William Kvist and Nicklas Bendtner should feature, but star player Christian Eriksen of Tottenham Hotspur is out with a thigh injury.

A Denmark victory would make it three defeats at Wembley in a row for England following the November losses to Chile and Germany.

These two last met in a friendly in Copenhagen three years ago, when England edged out the Danes 2-1 thanks to goals from Darren Bent and Ashley Young after Agger had put the hosts in front.

Recent form

England: LLWWDW

Denmark: WWDWWL

Possible starting lineups

England: Forster; Johnson, Cahill, Smalling, Baines; Wilshere, Carrick; Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lallana, Sterling; Sturridge

Denmark: Andersen; Jacobsen, Bjelland, Agger, Kristensen; Poulsen, Kvist, Zimling; Kahlenberg, Bendtner, Krohn-Dehli

Sports Mole says: 2-1