Steve McClaren says there is no room for player-power inside his England camp.

McClaren reacted angrily to suggestions that the players had forced him to scrap his plans to play a 3-5-2 formation against Macedonia today.

The England head coach worked for two training sessions on the system earlier this week but stressed that he, along with his coaching staff, would choose the team and the tactics.

McClaren said: "The play-ers do not pick the team and I can categorically say that the players did not have a meeting.

"I, along with the coaches, pick the team, the tactics, the formations and the gameplan.

"Yes we will ask the players but you can tell if it flows, if it's cohesive, when you are in training and it has been."

McClaren has won his first three games as England boss, starting the games with a traditional 4-4-2 formation.

It is the system most familiar to the players but the manager is keen to develop options.

That is why he devoted an entire day working on the 3-5-2 option when his squad arrived in Manchester.

He did not reveal which tactics would be in evidence against Macedonia, today, or in Croatia on Wednesday but he hinted that the work done on the training pitch with a back three this week might be for the more distant future.

McClaren said: "We have to look at different ways of doing things, look at new ideas.

"That may be defending set-pieces, attacking setpieces, different ways of playing within a 4-4-2 or different formations.

"It's no secret that this week we've had two sessions working on a 3-5-2 using different personnel.

"We may see it this weekend, we may see it on Wednesday, we may see it in the future, who knows?"

The England boss and his assistant, Terry Venables, are keen on the advantages of a 3-5-2 system which, in theory, offers more fluency and flexibility going forward.

McClaren said: "I think it's a system we can go to, we've got the players to do it. I've watched it for a couple of sessions and I know we can do it.

"I was confident and comfortable with what I saw, so were the players.

"It's something we may use in the future. We may use it at the beginning of games but it's something we may go to.

"It's working along the principle I laid out before I started the job.

"We will try different things but we won't be static in our formations all the time.

"We can play 4-4-2. We've proved that. We've played three games with it and we've won three, scored ten and conceded none.

"We can play that very well but also, during games, we need to change."

McClaren goes into the Euro 2008 qualifier against Macedonia, at a sold-out Old Traf-ford, with his team on top of group E.

England opened their campaign by thrashing Andorra 5-0 and then squeezed past Macedonia with a 1-0 win in Skopje, last month.

McClaren said: "That was a great result. It was a very, very big win. Certain aspects of the performance were very good. The back five was excellent and our defending on the whole as a team was excellent but we need to play better football and I've said that to the team this week.

"At times when we go onenil up, we need to push and go for the second goal.

"We can't just sit back. It's been a criticism of us in the past and rightly so.

"We've discussed it this week with the team because we sat back too deep in the last ten or 15 minutes in Skopje. We allowed pressure on ourselves and we need to be better in those situations. We had great results but we can do better."

Whatever formation England play, Wayne Rooney will return to the team for the first time since being sent off in the World Cup quarter-final against Portugal.

Rooney missed McClaren's opening game against Greece through injury and was then banned from the first two qualifiers.

However, England are without injured midfielder Owen Hargreaves, who has been in brilliant form this season. McClaren said: "We were asked if we could play without Wayne and we did and won three games. Now, we are asked if we can play without Owen Hargreaves. Yes, we can."