As the Leicester Mercury said yesterday, he's probably contemplating throwing himself in.Keegan said Alan Shearer, who was reported to have a calf injury, was fit "He trained Sunday and today," Keegan said. "I don't know where the idea is coming from that he won't play."Keegan intimated that one of the players he has called up - Kieron Dyer, of Ipswich, and Charlton's Danny Mills - would be on the bench. "Kieron Dyer covers a lot of positions and was very close to joining the full squad anyway," Keegan said. "Only his age kept him out because I thought he could get a bit more playing experience for the Under-21s. Danny Mills has done a terrific job for Charlton."Keegan added: "Our first task is to put the Sweden game behind us. We didn't pass it well, we weren't inventive and, although we had bad luck, I am not going to use that as an excuse It was a bad day in the office. I didn't think we gave the ball away as much as chose the wrong options when we had it We ended up trying to pick people out with long balls.

Now the long ball is something English players can play, Bulgaria pass short and never pass long, but it has to be the right time to hit a long ball. We have to mix it up."I felt sorry for our strikers because our service was poor. They were being asked to make something out of nothing because nobody was making anything for them. We need to provide Alan Shearer with the platform for scoring goals and I have to pick a side that's well-balanced to do that. People can talk about experimenting but I am never going to throw in a load of kids without the experience. This'll be a tough game."England, who have never lost to Bulgaria and won on both previous visits here, need only a draw to keep their Euro 96 progress in their own hands, although they would have to win in Poland in September.Keegan, who scored here in 1979, added in a comment typical of his sometimes emotional attitude to management: "I don't do TV any more so I either get to Euro 2000 as coach of England or I don't go."Should England not get to the finals, it would surely be foolhardy for Keegan to miss them. There would be much to learn, not least about 2002 World Cup qualifying opponents.

He concluded, with a typical positive flourish: "I came into this job with my eyes wide open. I knew what the problems were and there will be a lot of time to talk about them if we don't get there. But that's a way off and I'm not even thinking in those terms."Six injuries and one suspension present a problem for Bulgaria's coach, Dimitar Dimitrov. The midfielders Ivailo Yordanov, Zlatko Yankov, Marian Hristov, Daniel Borimirov, the striker Georgi Ivanov and the goalkeeper Zdravko Zdravkov are all injury doubts, while the forward Hristo Yovov is suspended.. Zimbabwe 175 New Zealand 70-3 No result YOU HAVE to worry about the quality of any team who can lose to England, but Zimbabwe are closing in on a semi-final place in the World Cup. Glorious it is not, but fate seems to be ushering them forward. Had rain not intervened at Headingley yesterday the likelihood was that New Zealand would have knocked off the 106 runs they required in 35 overs, but when the umpires abandoned the game at 4.30pm with the Kiwis stranded at 70 for 3, the tie left Zimbabwe top of the Super Six table with five points.It is going to take an unhappy sequence of results to stop them qualifying, although the Zimbabwe captain, Alistair Campbell, was a long way short of counting his chickens."The worst case scenario now is that we will finish fifth," he said.