For those trying to puzzle Fabio Capello's starting line-up for Saturday's opening World Cup game against the United States, Monday's game against a local club side should provide some key clues – as well as 90 minutes of anxiety for England fans traumatised by Rio Ferdinand's injury.

Key player: England fans will be holding their collective breath hoping star names like Wayne Rooney come through their warm-up game against the Platinum Stars unscathed

At the Moruleng Stadium near Sun City, against the Platinum Stars, the England manager has said he will field his first XI as he looks to fine-tune his side ahead of the big kick off.

The damage to Ferdinand's ligaments has changed what looked like a straightforward training game into something more ominous.

Asked if it were not too much of a risk playing the likes of Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard and, especially, Ledley King so close to the first game, he said: “I don’t think so – touch wood.” Charming use of idiomatic English, that, but you hope there is a more substantial methodology behind it.

Capello’s apparent stubbornness is no doubt influenced by the relative poverty of the friendly performances against Mexico and Japan in the last three weeks.

Had everything been going smoothly then perhaps certain key players need not have been risked on Monday. As it stands, Capello is determined to have a look at his first team in a match situation, even if it is as low-key as this one.

“Sure these are friendly games, but you have to prepare for the game against the USA. Of course we have to be careful about injuries but we have to prepare for the game against the USA. So, yes we do [have to play the first team].

"I have to play all the players that will play against the USA for 45 or 60 minutes.”

Capello acknowledged that what happened to Ferdinand will hit his players hard but insisted that it must not interfere with his plans. “I’m prepared that some players will be injured but I hope always during the game, not during training,” he said.

The normally austere Italian is in a lighter mood since arriving in South Africa and he greeted a bleary-eyed Michael Dawson warmly as he jogged onto the training pitch in the morning sun in Rustenburg yesterday.

Having flown overnight, Capello didn’t want Dawson going straight into training so Dr Stefano Tirelli, the physiologist, put him through some painful-looking stretches to ensure he was not going to pull anything. With Matthew Upson running a temperature he could find himself getting game time as a substitute tomorrow.

Capello had one eye, or well, four proxy eyes, on the United States on Saturday. Franco Baldini and David Beckham went to Johannesburg to watch a US team dominate a poor Australia but only win 3-1. Capello will study the dvd today but knows that if his players revert to their qualifying form, there should be no problem.

He is refusing to set much store by which tactical system his team will use at the finals.

“I think it’s not important if you play 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1: it is 9-1, always,” he said. “All teams play with 9-1. This is the new system on the pitch and this system depends on the quality of the players.”

The implication is that every team must get nine players behind the ball when it is lost, that in pressing and harrying, no passengers can be carried. The secondary implication is that the best attacking football is played on the counter, working forward off a lone fulcrum, in England’s case a Peter Crouch or an Emile Heskey.

In their warm-up games Capello felt his players missed this point, one that had energised their best qualifying displays (especially the two games against Croatia).

It is seven months since their last competitive international – against Belarus – and some of the bad old habits are creeping back. They are missing the quality that has made this Capello team so much more effective: they were not direct enough, instead being content to pass the ball in ineffectual horseshoes around a packed opposition team.

“I think the second half against Japan was good because we played with different spirit,” he said. "I was really happy because not all the players played with the same spirit. Some players started to play with the spirit that I like, that I want to see on the pitch: strong and fast.

"You want to win back the ball and go forward to be dangerous, at speed, not play slow, too wide always. We played too wide in the first half and we lost [misplaced] a lot of passes.”

The message has been hammered home with a Capello dvd compilation composed of “mistakes” and “the things that they did really, really well”. No surprises that there were significantly more of the former.

The main areas of selection concern the goalkeeper, the holding midfield berth and the centre forward. Capello said he “more or less” knew his first XI but would not disclose which goalkeeper he had chosen. Rob Green, as the man in possession, is trying to hang on but Joe Hart is training superbly.

As happy as Capello is taking risks, it is looking increasingly unlikely he will hurry back Gareth Barry for the US game. It is understood the Manchester City midfielder is pushing to start but the medical team are worried about jeopardising his recovery.

That will mean Steven Gerrard playing in the centre and, if the allocation of the team ‘a’ bibs at training are any indication, James Milner coming in to play on the left. It is tight up front: Crouch has that superb goalscoring record but Capello apparently believes Heskey gets the best out of Rooney.

Several players went out for a round of golf on Saturday while others did an extra session in the gym. There is plenty of free time under the huge blue cloudless sky in Rustenburg but not much to do with it.

From their Marang hotel the veld stretches out in all directions and security guards on horseback patrol the perimeter. One member of the FA team said they had found the remains of a chameleon clinging to the electric fence. Capello hopes this kind of isolation will concentrate the minds of his charges.

“I want to see a real focus,” he said. “We are training every day to try to find something that I didn’t see in our last games. You know my target is to arrive at the final but I am focused [on] the USA game. I don’t think about the future, I think about things game by game.

"I am focused on this. Always.” If his players share that intensity, England will be on their way.