Fabio Capello, the England manager, plans to name an extended squad of 30 for the spring internationals against the United States and Trinidad & Tobago and is considering one final attempt to coax Paul Scholes out of international retirement.

Still casting around for a way to bring the best out of Wayne Rooney and increasingly worried by the inability of his team to keep possession, Capello is set to appeal to the 33-year-old Manchester United midfield player, who announced in August 2004 that he had finished with international football.

Steve McClaren, the former England head coach, made four unsuccessful attempts to persuade Scholes to change his mind and it is similarly unlikely that Capello will succeed, but he hopes that Scholes could be tempted by one last crack at a leading international tournament, with the prospect of playing an important role in England's 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign. Scholes will be halfway to his 36th birthday when the finals begin, but Capello is more concerned with what his intelligent passing could bring to England's midfield now, particularly his experience in bringing the best out of Rooney at United.

Capello intends to use the international matches in May and June to determine the key personnel who will form the backbone of his team next season and wants to make his approach to Scholes soon. The United playmaker has been an important figure for his club this season, not least during the 2-0 victory away to AS Roma in the Champions League.

Scholes won 66 caps for England, the last in the European Championship quarter-final defeat by Portugal in 2004, but he became increasingly frustrated with Sven-Göran Eriksson's decision to play him on the wide left of midfield rather than in his preferred central role. There would be no such problem with Capello, who has earmarked where he wishes Scholes to play, if he is open to a return.

There will be several player switches during the spring internationals as Capello searches for the right pairings and others who could feature include Dean Ashton, the West Ham United striker. Capello may also give Stewart Downing, the Middlesbrough winger, a chance to impress.

Capello regards the ten days he will spend with the players over this period as significant in assessing how open they are to his ideas and training methods. He has been frustrated by the lack of access to the squad, spending only three days together before the friendly matches against Switzerland and France, and was hampered further last month by the scheduling of big matches involving Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool on the Sunday before the game against France.

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