Football Betting: England should prevail despite injuries up front

Internationals / Ralph Ellis / 30 March 2009 / Leave a Comment

Winning against Slovakia meant losing players for Wednesday's World Cup qualifier against the Ukraine. But Fabio Capello won't be the only concerned manager, says Ralph Ellis.

It's not hard to see why club managers hate international friendlies. You sometimes wonder whether international managers are all that keen on them either.

Fabio Capello might have been beaming on Saturday night after Wayne Rooney's goals had helped run up a 4-0 victory for England over a half interested Slovakia side. But all he'd really got from the game was another pile of injury problems before the match that matters against Ukraine in Wednesday night's World Cup qualifier.

Emile Heskey's back at Aston Villa, who must be well pleased that the £3million signing who was supposed to propel them into the Champions League has been messed up in a meaningless England game for the second time in little more than a month. Martin O'Neill was furious that Capello played Heskey in Spain despite an Achilles problem, and won't be happy that his options for Sunday's trip to Old Trafford seem to have been reduced.

Meanwhile, West Ham have got Carlton Cole in their treatment room this morning too, and Portsmouth will be wondering whether their main goalscorer Peter Crouch will come back in the right condition to play away to relegation rivals Hull. Pompey have won only one away game since August and without Crouch they are unlikely to start now, making laying them at [2.96] a tempting bet.

You might have thought the FA would have learned the lesson about playing a friendly on the Saturday before a big qualifying game. Steve McClaren was cast as the Wally with the Brolly after the Wembley defeat by Croatia that knocked England out of Euro 2008, but his team selection wasn't helped by Michael Owen getting injured in Austria a few days earlier.

But this Slovakia game was all about unveiling a new kit to help Umbro make up some of the money lost by the failure to qualify for last summer's tournament. And that left some questions to answer as well. When did we decide to play in all white, instead of blue shorts, and who was asked about it? And who invented "anthem tops" to take off so that the new design would be unveiled just before the crowd sang God Save the Queen?

Capello won't be calling Owen into his squad to make up for the missing strikers, having dismissed his record of 40 goals in 89 international appearances as "history". Ironically, he's the one player whose club would have wanted him turning out for England, because Newcastle need to get him games to bring up to fitness to find the goals they want to stay up. Despite all his injury problems this season Owen has still got eight in the Premier League, only two less than Darren Bent who has been brought into the squad. The Toon remain [2.16] favourites to be the third club to go down with West Brom [1.09] and Middlesbrough [1.59].

The problems up front suggest while Capello's side should record another win [1.42] on Wednesday to pave their way to South Africa, it might not be so simple. Odds of [7.0] for a 1-0 and [6.6] for 2-0 look tempting, as does [4.5] for a draw at half time before England go on to collect the three points.

At least England are still in the hunt. Wales will effectively be playing friendlies for the rest of their World Cup campaign after the dismal 2-0 defeat at home to Finland. Craig Bellamy added another to his memorable list of petulant post-match interviews by labelling the Finns "a bad team" and goalscorer Jonatan Johansson as "not good enough to score". But at least he'll be there for the first of the meaningless matches against Germany on Wednesday, insisting he won't follow Ryan Giggs and Gary Speed into international retirement. The Germans are [1.46] to win in the Millenium Stadium and that looks generous.

Scotland also suffered, beaten 3-0 by Holland in the Amsterdam Arena and now desperate for a win over Iceland on Wednesday to get back into second place in the group. But given their problems scoring goals the [1.46] for that home win looks more like one to lay.

The Republic of Ireland also need to produce something special on Wednesday, but that won't be easy away to Italy even if they are playing in Bari rather than the Azzurri's traditional stronghold in Rome. Giovanni Trapattoni is [10] to upset his countrymen.

So it was left to Northern Ireland to provide the one really big World Cup result of the weekend, with a 3-2 home win over Poland with Manchester United's Jonny Evans getting the crucial second goal just after half time. They are now a point clear at the top of their group and face Slovenia on Wednesday with a real chance to bring back the days of Billy Bingham's successful sides. Odds of [2.3] for a home win look tempting - and [3.2] for them to finish in the top two places of Group Three even more so.