John Carew believes the versatility of his Aston Villa team-mate James Milner should guarantee him a spot in England's 2010 World Cup squad.

Striker Carew was Villa's man of the match in their 5-1 demolition of visiting Bolton on Saturday, setting up three goals and scoring one himself.

But Milner again turned in an excellent performance to issue another reminder to Fabio Capello of his talent ahead of Saturday's friendly with Brazil.

He has played for Villa at right-back, on the right and left sides of midfield and as a second striker, while Capello even employed him as a left-back when he came on as substitute against Belarus at Wembley last month.

Carew said: "James should be on the plane for the World Cup - absolutely. He has been our most consistent player for a while now and he almost never has a bad game.

"He can play anywhere on the field, he is right and left footed and can be a very important player for England.

"I know on the right side of midfield he could be up against Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright-Phillips and David Beckham and I know it is not easy to break into the England first team.

"But still you need a player who can come in and do the job for you, whether it's on the left or the right without lowering the level of the team, and James fits that bill.

"If he is not first choice he can be a very good second choice and is a player you can put in any situation in the game and almost any position on the field, and know he is good on the ball, and is always consistent.

"That versatility might well help him with England and he deserves to go to the World Cup."

Carew was virtually unplayable and made it a torrid afternoon for the former Villa centre-back duo of Gary Cahill and Zat Knight and is now close to his best after early season injury niggles.

The Norwegian international said: "I just needed to get in shape and it takes a month or two before I start going.

"That is the same every year. You get a few games, and you get the rhythm going first of all and then the chances and the goals will come. I wasn't worried about that.

"I had a few injury niggles early season and it sets you back and you lose the rhythm a little bit, but now I've had a few games in a row and games get me in shape and the goals are coming and I hope it continues.

"I know I normally have an edge on defenders so, if I just go 100%, I normally win the challenges."

Bolton have now leaked 15 goals in their last four matches in all competitions and have still to keep a clean sheet in the league this season.

Boss Gary Megson pulled no punches about his side's performance and said: "That display was unacceptable.

"No-one except the goalkeeper (Jussi Jaaskelainen) was anywhere near the standard acceptable in the Premier League and certainly at this football club.

"Sometimes one or two players are not up to the usual standard in a game but none of the outfield players got anywhere close to what we expect at Villa.

"We've got the international break now and we've got work to do in the next two weeks. We are not going to get the results we need playing like that."

Bolton striker Kevin Davies said: "There's nothing positive to say at all. We managed to get ourselves back in the game pretty much against the run of play (at 2-1) but our second-half performance was unacceptable from pretty much everyone really.

"Obviously we're shipping goals. That's something we mentioned before the game. Our clean-sheet record is the worst in the Premier League.

"We can't achieve what we want to achieve if we can't keep clean sheets. We score in pretty much every game but we're needing two or three goals to get anything out of the game."

Ashley Young, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Carew, Milner and Carlos Cuellar hit the goals for Villa with Bolton's reply coming from substitute Johan Elmander.