Recently England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has favoured a midfield diamond with either Steven Gerrard, Paul Scholes or Frank Lampard playing on the left flank.
However, with a host of first-choice squad members, including Scholes, Lampard and Kieron Dyer, all missing from this latest squad, Thompson has received his first senior call-up.

Now he is hoping to get a chance to impress, even as a substitute, in a side which is also missing David Beckham, who pulled out through injury yesterday.
Thompson said: "I'm naturally left-sided and there haven't been too many players who have been naturally left-sided in the team over the past few years.

"Some managers like to play people out of position, but this is a chance for Sven to look at some new faces and I'm just delighted to be here as it's a great honour.''

At the age of 30 and having not been selected for the friendly in Portugal, it was no surprise Thompson thought his chance had gone.

"When the call came, it was a total surprise. I thought I had a slight chance of getting into the squad for the Portugal game but when it didn't happen, I thought that was it,'' he admitted.

"It is [frustrating] when you're not getting picked. But you just get on with it and I didn't want to make a song and dance about it.

"It is difficult in the Scottish league as everyone knows it's not the same standard as in the Premiership and some other leagues in Europe.

"At Celtic, we've done reasonably well in Europe for the past few years. But it's tough as one weekend, with no disrespect, we're playing Dundee or Dundee United, and then we're playing against Barcelona in the Nou Camp. It's a totally different class of opposition.

"In the Premiership, you're playing in big games, week in and week out. But Celtic was a chance for me to play football again after a bad 12 months at Aston Villa.''