England will be looking to book their World Cup 2018 spot by beating Slovenia when the two sides lock horns at Wembley on Thursday night. Gareth Southgate’s team lead Group F with 20 points from 8 games, and a win at Wembley or one three days later in Vilnius will seal qualification for his charges.
The Three Lions are one of seven teams unbeaten in European World Cup qualifying so far. Switzerland, Germany, Serbia, Wales, Spain and Belgium are the other six, but the Red Devils are the only team from the continent who have booked their tickets to Russia 2018 as on date.
The equation for England is rather simple- a win from one of their two remaining games will see them qualify. Two draws in these games will do fine for them, and even one point will be good enough if second place Slovakia (currently 5 points behind) do not win both of their fixtures.
Slovenia are third in the group, one behind Slovakia and level on points with Scotland but ahead of the latter on goal difference. This is an important fixture for Srecko Katanec’s side because Slovakia will finish with an easy fixture at home against Malta- a gimme given the way the group has played so far. A loss will almost certainly end their hopes of qualifying via the playoffs.
England’s results so far in Group F (World Cup qualifying)
Slovakia 0-1 England (Lallana)
England 2-0 Malta (Sturridge, Alli)
Slovenia 0-0 England
England 3-0 Scotland (Sturridge, Lallana, Cahill)
England 2-0 Lithuania (Defoe, Vardy)
Scotland 2-2 England (Ox, Kane)
Malta 0-4 England (Kane*2, Bertrand, Welbeck)
England 2-1 Slovakia (Rashford, Dier)
The only game out of the eight where England failed to find the back of the net was away at Slovenia, and the visitors will take heart from that result. Here’s how they’ve performed so far- you can see that they were unbeaten in their first four games, but have been hurt by the twin 1-0 losses away against Scotland and Slovakia.
Lithuania 2-2 Slovenia (Krhin, Cesar)
Slovenia 1-0 Slovakia (Kronaveter)
Slovenia 0-0 England
Malta 0-1 Slovenia (Verbic)
Scotland 1-0 Slovenia
Slovenia 2-0 Malta (Ilicic, Novakovic)
Slovakia 1-0 Slovenia
Slovenia 4-0 Lithuania (Ilicic*2, Verbic, Brsa)
After a barren August, Harry Kane hit red hot form in September, scoring 13 goals (THIRTEEN) in eight games for Spurs and England. He’s even been linked with a 177 million pound bid from Real Madrid, and we reckon he could be a very good candidate to open the scoring at Wembley come Thursday- click here for all the best first goalscorer odds for this fixture.
Here’s another fun stat- from the 10 goals Slovenia have scored in this campaign, only ONE- Josip Ilicic’s 25th minute penalty at home in the last round against Lithuania, was scored in the first half. ALL their other goals have come in the second half.
England by comparison, have ALWAYS scored in the first half of their games at Wembley in Group F. Daniel Sturridge was the first scorer against Scotland and Malta, but the Liverpool striker hasn’t been at his best in recent times, as was evident in the Reds’ 1-1 draw away at Newcastle over the weekend.
England’s 16 goals scored in their eight WC qualifiers so far- by Player
Kane (3)
Sturridge & Lallana (2)
Alli, Cahill, Defoe, Vardy, Ox, Bertrand, Welbeck, Rashford, Dier (1 each)
Lallana and Vardy are injured while Phil Jones and Fabian Delph were late withdrawals from the squad, leading to a maiden call up for Tottenham’s Harry Winks. Dele Alli is suspended for this clash.
The referee for this Wembley fixture will be Germany’s Felix Zwayer. This is his first game in Group F, although he was a fourth official in the reverse fixture between these two sides in Ljubljana last year. Zwayer’s last game involving an English team was the Rostov vs Manchester United Europa League clash in March earlier this year, when he dished out six yellows.
England v Slovenia
Wembley Stadium, London- 5 October, 2017- 19.45 UK KO- World Cup Qualifying Group F