ENGLAND manager Roy Hodgson is worried his team's Euro 2016 qualifying prospects could be harmed by a combination of UEFA's new match scheduling format and televised club games.
Roy Hodgson's side were drawn in Group E along with Switzerland - the team he led to the 1994 World Cup finals - Slovenia, Estonia, Lithuania and San Marino.
On the face of it, England looked to have been handed a straightforward route to the finals in France.
However with UEFA now spreading games in international breaks from Thursday until Tuesday, Hodgson is worried England will be asked to play the first game of back-to-back fixtures with little preparation time.
England and all the teams involved in qualifying were due to find out their fixtures programme later on Sunday, and Hodgson said: "The thing I'm most concerned about is Thursday."
He told Sky Sports News: "I feel that in our preparations we'll have to deal with top (club) matches on Super Sunday with your channel, which means we wouldn't really get the players to do any real work with them before the Tuesday, and if we were playing on the Thursday it would make our preparations very difficult.
"Thursday-Sunday concerns me because I don't think we'd be able to persuade the Premier League and Sky Sports to bring the best fixtures to the Saturday and it will mean basically we'll get no preparation."
The prospect of a dispute over fixtures is one Hodgson and the Football Association will no doubt be keen to avoid.
Overall, though, Hodgson, who led Switzerland to the 1994 World Cup and steered them to Euro 96 qualification but led before the finals to join Inter Milan, saw England's draw as positive.
"I'm very satisfied," he said.
"I must say the name of Switzerland always brings a smile to my face. They were four fantastic years.
"It's a team we know reasonably well so I was happy with that one."
England have never played Lithuania before, but San Marino have been regular opponents - in 1993 they famously scored after just 8.3 seconds against England after a bungled back-pass by Stuart Pearce.
England went on to win 7-1 - and have scored at least five goals in the four games they have played. Estonia should also pose little problem, with England playing them twice in 2007 and winning 3-0 home and away. Switzerland will be England's biggest challenge, having secured a 2-2 draw at Wembley in qualifying for Euro 2012.
