England bring down the curtain on their World Cup 2018 qualification campaign with a trip to Lithuania on Sunday night. England secured their qualification for next summer’s tournament thanks to a 94th minute winner from Harry Kane on Thursday. Kane’s late goal wrapped up a 1-0 win for the Three Lions and secured top spot in the group.
Lithuania themselves drew 1-1 with Malta in their last game, a result which means that the Lithuanians will not finish at the bottom of Group F; a success of sorts for the minnows. Despite winning just once during this qualification campaign, the country ranked 120th in the world will be fairly happy with their performances.
Team News
Gareth Southgate will welcome back midfielder Dele Alli following his one match ban and the Spurs midfielder is expected to go straight into the starting line up on Sunday. With England having already sealed their qualification, Southgate may shuffle his pack and the likes of Daniel Sturridge, Jesse Lingard, Michael Keane, Harry Winks and Aaron Cresswell will all be hopeful of getting a start. Lithuania have no injury concerns ahead of the game and are expected to name the same starting line up as their most recent game against Malta.
Prediction
England are unbeaten in 38 qualifying matches across the World Cup and European Championships and I can see them extending that record against a Lithuania side who have lost six of their past seven matches. The two sides have previously met three times with England emerging victorious on each occasion without conceding a goal. The pressure is off now for England, having already qualified and I fancy the Three Lions to turn in a dominating performance on Sunday evening. Gareth Southgate may choose to rotate his squad a little, but even so, England have far too much quality for Lithuania.
Betting Preview – Ladbrokes
England go into the game as big favourites for the win on Sunday at odds of 1/3, whilst a victory for Lithuania is available at 8/1 and the draw is 4/1. Lithuania have never scored against England and the 4/6 available on BTTS (NO) looks like easy money to me as I really can’t see them troubling the England backline at all. An even better bet looks to be on England to win and BTTS (NO) at 21/10 though and that is where I’ll be staking my money. It’s tough to go down the goal scorer route this early, because no one really knows what sort of team Southgate will select. Daniel Sturridge could get the start though and the 4/1 on him to open the scoring certainly looks tempting.
England to win & BTTS (NO) – 21/20 (Ladbrokes)