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Former England defender Paul Parker thinks the World Cup qualifier in Belarus should hold no fears for Fabio Capello's side.

"There was a time when trips to Eastern Europe used to be quite intimidating, but these places are a lot more refined nowadays.

A lot of people probably go on holiday to Minsk, and in any case the England players will be very well looked-after.

They will stay in the best hotel and take their own chef with them to make sure they get all the right food.

In any case, they have no chance to get out and about to explore the place, particularly with the intensity of modern media coverage.

I went to some fairly spartan places with England - Bucharest and Albania stick out - but it was never that bad and we didn't spend too much time thinking about it.

During my career I went to virtually every country in Europe except Luxembourg, and yet I never saw any of them.

I remember going to St Petersburg, or Leningrad as it was then, and spending the whole time in a hotel. That was quite typical.

When you're a footballer you have to save the sightseeing until you have stopped playing, although I don't think I'll be taking the family to Tirana any time soon!

I expect England to win against a potentially tricky Belarus side who are very unpredictable, having had some good and bad results.

There are doubts over Alexander Hleb, but who knows, maybe they would be more solid without him.

It seems that Fabio Capello is better at setting his sides up for away games.

His tactics are naturally quite patient and cautious, but there is too much pressure to play attacking football at Wembley.

All the talk has been about Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, but for me the one undroppable England midfielder is Gareth Barry.

He might not be glamorous, but he is one of those players that you only really notice when he isn't there.

We really saw that as England lost their way in the second half against Kazakhstan - conceding a goal and looking really chaotic at times - and I expect Barry to steady the ship tonight.

I think tactics had more to do with the poor performance against Kazakhstan than the crowd.

As a footballer, you get used to playing in all types of hostile atmosphere. I'm sure Ashley Cole would rather he didn't have his own fans booing him, but I don't think that can excuse England's sub-par display.

The reaction to that game shows you that the quality of the performance can be just as important as the result.

A 5-1 scoreline might look emphatic but people know that it flattered England, who didn't do the job properly and took until the last 10 minutes to carve through a side ranked 130 in the world.

Compare that with the ecstatic response to the win against Croatia, and it just shows you what a good display can do for your confidence."

Paul Parker was talking to Alex Chick / Eurosport