It was a pretty disappointing night all round for the home nations with no-one winning, though in fairness some of them had more taxing challenges than others.
The one team who really should have won was England, at home to Montenegro. Or at least that's what their starting price of around 1.222/9 suggested should happen. Instead, fans who had travelled to Wembley witnessed a lacklustre performance from the home side that lacked creativity and a proper game plan with only wingers Ashley Young and Adam Johnson really causing the visitors' defence any problems. In all honesty, it could have been a lot worse had Joe Hart not made a fantastic save in the last few minutes in what would have been one of the greatest upsets in the history of England internationals, if the shot had gone in. As it was, England failed to score at the new Wembley for the very first time which at least pleased those who had taken odds of 13.012/1 on a Montenegro shut-out. The draw was backed at 7.413/2 and the 0-0 scoreline was matched at 20.019/1.
Scotland were arguably the side who put in the bravest performance of all. At 2-0 down to the World and European champions Spain, who were trading at 1.011/100 to hold on to the win, it would have been easy for the match to have ended in a cricket score but the hosts fought back bravely and levelled after goals from Steven Naismith and Gerard Pique, who put a cross through his own net. With ten minutes left on the clock Spain had drifted to 3.259/4 before substitute Fernando Llorente, nicknamed "The Lion King" , converted a fine cross from the right to break Scottish hearts. The 2-3 final scoreline was backed at 230.0229/1.
One side who certainly couldn't use the quality of their opposition as an excuse for a poor result was Northern Ireland. They were up against the ultimate minnows of European football in the Faroe Islands and couldn't manage any better than a 1-1 draw. The hosts actually took a shock lead and traded at 1.654/6 to hang on before Kyle Lafferty equalised with a quarter of an hour to go to give those who had backed the draw at 5.69/2 a nice payout.
Over in Slovakia, the Republic of Ireland secured a respectable 1-1 draw, which was matched at 4.3100/30 but they should really have taken all three points. Robbie Keane, who converted a penalty against Russia on Friday night, fluffed his lines this time with the score at 1-1.
Meanwhile things go from bad to worse for Wales, who followed up their 1-0 loss to Bulgaria at the weekend with a 4-1 away defeat to Switzerland with "any unquoted" (either side to score four goals or more) matched at 28.027/1 in-running.
Elsewhere France beat Luxembourg 2-0. Whilst there was nothing surprising about the home win it was perhaps by a much smaller margin than many would expect and under 2.5 goals was matched at the big price of 6.05/1. World Cup finalists the Netherlands continue to beat all-comers with consummate ease and tonight's victims were Sweden, who like Wales were on the wrong end of a 4-1 defeat; 5 goals or more was matched at 9.08/1.