World Cup 2010 / Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco / 13 October 2009 / Leave a comment

England finish off their qualifying campaign with a home tie against Belarus. A match they are likely to win even without the injured duo of Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney but don't expect the floodgates to open in terms of goals, says Jamie Pacheco.

"Unsurprisingly, England go into this match as short as 1.2. It’s not the sort of price you’d lump on given that England don’t need to win. But it’s probably the sort of “banker” you’d include in a Betfair Multiple if that’s the way you go about your betting."

All good things must come to an end. Just ask fans of Seinfeld or Oasis. The band that is, not the soft drink; the latter is thankfully still around.

On Saturday afternoon England were on course for a perfect qualifying campaign but a Rio Ferdinand lapse, a Robert Green sending-off, a few flares and a Serhiy Nazarenko strike conspired to remind England that international football is rarely plain sailing.

In Fabio Capello they have their greatest asset and in Wayne Rooney a world-class player who performs to the same standard for country as he does for club. Beyond that the likes of Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand and John Terry are all top players but seem to get the sort of stage fright whilst playing for England that you rarely see them get at club level. They lack a top class keeper and, with Michael Owen out of favour, Jermain Defoe as yet unproven at this level and Emile Heskey and Peter Crouch not playing regularly for their clubs, they need a strike partner for Wayne Rooney. At 7.6 they represent no value at all to win the World Cup though ironically I'd expect their price to be shorter come next summer as patriotic money rears its head.

Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard both miss Wednesday's match against Belarus through injury, thus depriving England of two of their most likely sources of goals. Aaron Lennon, the unlucky man to be sacrificed in the wake of Green's sending-off, is likely to be given another chance to show what he can do whilst Green will be replaced by David James provided he can shake off a sore knee.

Belarus showed in their home match against England that they're a decent footballing side who lack a couple of big name players with big match experience. Aleksandr Hleb, now at Stuttgart, is their only player to come under that category and it's perhaps no coincidence that his team have had little trouble beating the likes of Kazakhstan and Andorra whilst taking just one point from the five matches they have played against the three big teams of the group: England, Croatia and the Ukraine. Incidentally, the Stuttgart midfielder was left out of their weekend win against Kazakhstan along with his brother Vyacheslav and BATE Borisov midfielder Igor Statesivich as the manager Bernd Stange opted to give some of his younger players a chance. They may all miss out again.

Unsurprisingly, England go into this match as short as [1.2]. It's not the sort of price you'd lump on given that England don't need to win. But it's probably the sort of "banker" you'd include in a Betfair Multiple if that's the way you go about your betting. The far better bets lie in the goals markets. Rooney and Gerrard have scored 12 of England's 31 goals in qualifying so far and with those two absent I can't see Yury Zhevnov being as busy as he normally would. The same goes for Belarus - if Hleb misses the match Belarus will be deprived of their chief creator and whatever you say about the lapses of concentration of which Glen Johnson and Rio Ferdinand are guilty of, I don't think Belarus are good enough to capitalise on them. Both under 2.5 goals at [3.0] and under 3.5 goals at [1.85] look attractive wagers.

As was the case on Saturday, goalscorer markets are best left alone on this one. I'd expect the inevitable three England substitutions to come in midfield and up front where relatively untried names such as James Milner and Gabriel Agbonlahor are sure to figure . You wouldn't want to be backing the likes of Frank Lampard and Aaron Lennon to score at less than [3.0] with the possibility of them being hauled off at half-time, would you? I would, however, expect the England starting 11 to be a strong one so the [1.5] on the home side leading at the break is as safe a way of turning a 50% profit in 45 minutes as you'll find tomorrow night.

Tags: betting on England, England v Belarus, football bets, Jamie Pacheco, Wayne Rooney injury, World Cup betting