Put Your Money On England
Tuesday, 16th Oct 2007 18:00

The Watcher is back with a few tips on how to bet on this weeks Internationals.

The small matter of a sporting competition currently taking place in France has somewhat distracted the bookies’ attention from Wednesday’s England clash in Moscow. Despite the satchel-swingers already having trousered the not insubstantial sums wagered on New Zealand, Australia, France et al for the Rugby World Cup, their bleeding hearts are wailing that a victory for Jonny and Co on Saturday will spell financial ruin. (Incidentally, the Springboks’ 36-0 thrashing of our boys only five weeks ago, four consecutive wins over England and 263 points to 134 and 33 tries to 12 in this competition suggest the odds compilers are not being over-generous in offering us at 2-1 to lift the Webb Ellis Trophy).

Whatever happens across the English Channel at the weekend, our short term priority is trying to nail down the value for this important Group E qualifier and the bet365 9-4 offered for the draw looks the best shout to me. Although at various stages, England’s chances of making the plane for Austria and Switzerland next summer were looking dodgy, five successive 3-0 victories have changed matters but this match represents their biggest challenge since losing to Croatia.

Much has been made of the Fieldturf at the Luzhniki stadium and the fact that the Russians have had the thick end of ten days to practise on it but their recent record on this ground is nothing spectacular. Croatia and Israel have both left Moscow with a point and England certainly have a stronger line-up than either of them. Some punters- on the crest of a patriotic betting wave - will be plunging into England at a top-priced 13-10 (various) but, with McClaren knowing that a point should suffice, we don’t expect our boys to be overly-ambitious and the stalemate looks good.

Correct score punters hoping for another 3-0 win can get all the 28-1 they want. We prefer the Paddy Power 7-1 on ‘No Scorer’. The Russians have kept seven clean sheets out of a possible nine in qualifying while England have only conceded those two goals in Croatia. It is also worth noting that Croatia drew 0-0 here as did Portugal in the 2006 World Cup preliminaries.

If you must have a punt on the first scorer, stats show that we have taken the lead in seven out of our ten Group E matches with Peter Crouch and Sean Wright-Phillips breaking the deadlock twice with one apiece for Gerrard, Joe Cole and Owen.

We must doff our caps to the Scots even if the vast majority of their nation will undoubtedly become honorary South Africans on Saturday. They travel to Georgia as 4-7 favourites to win in 90 minutes on the back of some incredible results. It is not necessarily my opinion but it has been suggested that with the Scottish propensity to mess things up on the simplest occasions then the home win might have some merit at 4-1.

A far better bet though must be the Coral’s 7-1 on James McFadden scoring the last goal of the game. He has achieved this in the last three qualifiers and is 9-4 with the same firm to score at any time in the game.

Euro 2008 Best Prices

Germany 11-2

Italy 7-1

England 15-2

Holland 9-1

France 10-1

Spain 10-1

Portugal 12-1

Croatia 20-1

Scotland 100-1

Wednesday's International

Russia 11-5 (Cor)