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Internationals

England v Andorra: Special in depth unders/overs analysis

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Last weekend Ed gave three selections in his under & over 2.5 goals column - and all three were successful! He has now recommended 4 winning bets from 9 for a profit of 6.74pts...

International football brings with it specific difficulties for the under/over 2.5 goals player.

Firstly, it is generally true that International World Cup and European Championship Qualifying matches tend to be far less exciting than their domestic league cousins.

There are, usually, significantly fewer chances for both sides to score meaning that shots on target and shots off target averages are lower than you would expect to see in, say, the Premiership.

Consequently, the under/over 2.5 goal market tends to skewed - the 'unders' option remains an obvious and quite often successful pick. But the value certainly, on the whole, is never with the obvious in any form of betting.

Although this will be true of many of the World Cup qualifying games that take place in the coming week, it is certainly not true of the mismatch that is Andorra v England that takes place on Saturday evening.

Whoever it was who penned that over used expression 'there is no such thing as an easy International football match' was certainly not thinking of Andorra v England. Andorra have to draw 11 quality players from a population of 70,000 people!

Andorra have only existed as an International Football team for 10 years, and in that time they have only won one International match (against Macedonia in 2004) and have only ever scored more than one goal in a competitive match on one occasion (v Cyprus in 2000).

When deciding what game or games to analyse for this week's column I must say that I didn't think it would be Andorra v England, but there are several reasons why I feel we should play the under/over market in this very match - and patriotism is certainly not one of them.

Andorra have already played one match in Group 6, losing 3-0 against Kazakhstan, and they are ranked 186th in the World. To put that into some sort of context San Marino are 200th, Jamaica are 105th, Austria are 101st, and Macedonia are 56th - all sides England have played in the past.

Let's take a closer look at England's record against the so called minnows of International football.

Their record against San Marino reads played two won two; a 6-0 Wembley thrashing and 1-7 away victory in the Stadio Renato Dal 'Ara in Bologna ,where you might remember they went 1-0 down after 20 seconds and were only 1-3 up at half time.

Against Jamaica in 2006 they won 6-0 at Old Trafford - but it should be noted they managed just 8 shots on target and 1 shot off target.

England managed a 0-1 European Championship qualifier victory against Macedonia in Skopje in September 2006, and a 0-1 friendly victory in Austria in November 2007.

England have played Andorra twice before. In September 2006 they beat them 5-0 at Old Trafford in a European Championship qualifier.

England had the likes of John Terry, Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe (who scored twice), Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard playing that day.

In fact, the side is remarkably similar to the one that Capello would like to play against Andorra this time around - and at that time in 2006 England were ranked 5th in the World.

Steve McLaren's men then travelled to Barcelona to play the away leg and won 0-3 in March 2007 and you may remember it was 0-0 at half time and England only made it 0-3 in the 90th minute despite having a relatively full strength squad - Steven Gerrard (missing on Saturday) scored twice. Wayne Rooney also played, but Frank Lampard missed the match with an injury. England were ranked 6th in the world then , Andorra 163rd. Andorra played with a 4-5-1 formation.

England are not at full strength this time around; their away form is not great, and they are more concerned about Wednesday's important match against Croatia than this one against Andorra.

In short, a victory of any sorts will be enough and although they are more than capable of scoring four or more against this Andorra side, they will be more concerned with getting and keeping a lead, and of coming through the game without any further injuries to their players. Capello may even rest players who are not 100% fit.

The welfare of his stars ahead of Croatia on Wednesday is especially important for Capello and will be a considerable focus for the England management as Andorra have a reputation as being an ill-disciplined, aggressive, side - in fact, they had more cards shown to their players than any other team involved in 2006 World Cup Qualifying stages.

Recommendation

The nation expects. England expects. Betfair over 2.5 goal players expect. But for me the value has to be to play the under 2.5 goal market. At time of writing the under 2.5 goals quote is a far from settled [4.3] - [4.9]. I would be interested in backing the 'unders' at [4.9], but according to my arithmetic the [4.3] even offers a little value.

The last time England won an International match by more than 3 goals away from home was against Germany in 2001 in that famous 1-5 victory, although they did beat Croatia 2-4 in June 2004. Despite scoring 3 goals against FIFA ranked 80th Trinidad and Tobago recently I feel going with the unlikely outcome of a game with fewer than 3 goals is a risk worth taking at the available prices.

Backing the obvious is simply not a successful strategy when it comes to betting, and although it is most unlikely that there will be under 2.5 goals I feel the odds available make that risk worthwhile. In fact, I think if you can get the [4.9]/[5.0] it represents a good value option and I am quite prepared to lose a 1pt in the hunt for a substantial profit on this occasion.

I would though suggest that we also play the 0-3 England correct score to a 0.25 point as a saver, as I cant see Andorra scoring and England have demonstrated recently - 3 is their magic number.....as it would be for those lumping on the odds on 'over' 2.5 alternative.