John Terry can profess to having been in the wars over the past few months but he looks to have won his battle to be fit for England's World Cup qualifying double-header against Moldova and Ukraine.

His Chelsea team-mate, Ashley Cole, may not be as fortunate as he continues to suffer from an ankle injury.

The England left-back became the second player to withdraw from what had been a 24-man squad for Friday's Group H opener. However, Terry played a full part in training yesterday, looking untroubled by his recent neck injury.

The news will likely hearten Roy Hodgson, the England manager, who is unlikely to call up cover for Cole, with Leighton Baines and Ryan Bertrand both named in the original squad.

Andy Carroll had already been ruled out of both matches after suffering a hamstring injury on his West Ham debut on Saturday, while Hodgson was already without Wayne Rooney, who suffered a gashed leg playing for Manchester United.

Sixteen of England's 22 remaining players trained yesterday but those involved in matches on Sunday were restricted to gym work: captain Steven Gerrard, Danny Welbeck, Glen Johnson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Michael Carrick and Tom Cleverley.

Many of those names will be well-known to Moldova, but their own squad will be unlikely to roll off the tongue quite so readily. Indeed they will be most familiar to those supporters that took in the World Cup qualifiers in 1996.

The English faced Moldova in that campaign and eased to 3-0 and 4-0 wins. Yet Hodgson was so determined for his players not to take Friday's match lightly that he will instruct them to imagine they are playing a side of Brazil's reputation.

"I know that outside of our little group who are preparing for the game, there will be a lot of thought that Moldova are not very special, not very strong, but we certainly don't go into the game with that thought at all," said the England manager. "We go into the game knowing they had a draw and a narrow defeat against Holland in the last qualifying campaign.

"If we are not aware of the fact that this is a major hurdle of the 10 hurdles we have to jump over then we would be very, very foolish.

"And, certainly, my message to the players is that, 'I don't care if they are called Moldova. As far as I'm concerned, they could be called Brazil and we have to produce a performance to win us the game'. If it turns out that perhaps they are not that good after all then I will be very happy. But I'm expecting them to be good and certainly watching the Moldova v Albania game then they know how to play.

"They are technical players, players who are basically unknown outside of eastern Europe. We are doing as much research as we can to get some sort of handle to what they will be like."