Fabio Capello fears the controversial playing surface at Wembley - and the £757million national stadium's hyper-critical crowd - could harm England's World Cup qualifying campaign, writes the Daily Mail this weekend.
Capello's team are five points clear in Group Six ahead of the home match against Ukraine a week on Wednesday. But with some England stars expressing their dissatisfaction over the Wembley pitch, Capello and his backroom staff believe the state-of-the-art stadium may have become more of a hindrance than a help.
Wembley have four weeks after concerts by Oasis on July 9, 11 and 12 to relay the pitch for the showpiece Community Shield on August 9. It is understood the pitch will then be ripped up and relaid a week later, after the August 14 concert by U2, with just two weeks for the new turf to bed down before the rugby league Challenge Cup final, followed a week later by the Slovenia friendly on September 5 and Croatia qualifier four days later. The surface is in line to be ditched for a third time after Coldplay's September 18 and 19 shows, with only three-and-a-half weeks to prepare another new pitch for the Belarus qualifier on October 14.
Read the full article at the Wembley threads in the Coldplay Live forum here (18th Sept) and here (19th Sept).
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