England v San Marino: Back an easy England win and some penalty area action

Roy Hodgson's team should brush San Marino aside on Thursday

England will win easily against San Marino on Thursday night, so Luke Moore has looked slightly further afield and picked out a handful of odds-against bets to get the juices flowing...

England v San Marino
Thursday October 9, 19:45
Live on ITV1

England

Regardless of how low the England national team have sunk, and there's a solid argument to be made that they're the worst side we've seen since the Graham Taylor era, Thursday night should serve as a tune-up, a walk in the park and a chance to get shape and formation right ahead of a slightly more tricky tie away in Estonia on Sunday afternoon.

Any combination of players picked in their right positions should be enough to beat Thursday's opposition with room to spare, and if the Three Lions have anything about them they'll use this game to keep confidence high after a superb and unexpected win in Basel against Switzerland that thrust them to the top of the qualification group and cemented them as strong favourites to win it.

Daniel Sturridge misses out through injury, so Roy Hodgson has captain Wayne Rooney, Rickie Lambert and Danny Welbeck to choose from as forward options.

San Marino

San Marino are the joint-worst team in the world according to FIFA, a dubious honour they share with the Kingdom of Bhutan. The microstate within Italy have never won a competitive game and only have one victory to their name - a 1-0 friendly win against Liechtenstein over ten years ago.

There isn't an awful lot to say about this side; all of their players currently ply their trade in San Marino, the domestic league in the country is currently ranked the second-worst in Europe by UEFA (and that's only because Gibraltar have just been recognised and sit bottom) and they have only ever scored one goal against England before, way back in 1993.

It is completely unrealistic to suggest that La Serenissima can get anything at all out of Thursday night's game, except maybe, just maybe a goal from a set piece if England lose concentration. 

Match Odds

England are, unsurprisingly, an unbackable 1.011/100 to turn over the might of San Marino on Thursday, San Marino sit at 500.0499/1 and The Draw rates as a 110.0109/1 shot. Unless you want to buy some money at a seriously small price, I'd advise leaving this market well alone.

Over/Under 2.5 Goals

1.061/18 is the price for there to be three or more goals in this game at Wembley; the market clearly feels like England are going to dish out a decent battering. In fact, we have to go all the way up to Over 6.5 Goals before we hit an odds-against price and it really depends on what you think England's attitude to the game will be - are they going to do a professional job before playing within themselves, seeing the game out and avoiding injuries? Or are they going to gun for that 13-0 record defeat of the Sammarinese, set by Germany in 2006?

I imagine a fair few of these England players will be getting a stern talking to from their club managers ahead of these two international games, and so it may well be shrewd to hit an Under 5.5 Goals bet at around 2.466/4. Picture this: England win 5-0, no-one gets injured or tries too hard, the fans get to see a good win, Roy Hodgson avoids any awkward questions in the press conference afterwards. Everybody wins.

Penalty Taken?

I like backing Yes in this market in these sorts of games. Teams of this ability and fitness tend to get tired after 65-70 minutes of not seeing any of the ball, and then lazy challenges are made pretty consistently, some of which occur inside the penalty area. But that's enough about England....

But no really, anything around 3.02/1 has to rate as a bet for a penalty to be taken - England will spend so much time in San Marino's box that the chances of a spot kick being awarded are much higher than they would be usually.

Correct Score 2 Home

To get any real value out of this fixture, we're probably going to need to look at the Correct Score 2 Home market. We've already established that it's hugely unlikely that San Marino will trouble the scorers, and so we're left to work out how many England will get on the route to certain victory.

England have scored 26 goals in four meetings with San Marino, an average of 6.5 per game. I genuinely think that in the current climate, this isn't a home side that's going to turn the screw and play to its maximum for 90 minutes though, and so I'd happily advise backing correct scores of 5-0 and 6-0 at 7.613/2 and 7.26/1 respectively.

Recommended Bets

Back Under 5.5 Goals at 2.466/4
Back Yes in Penalty Taken? market at 3.02/1 or better
Back 5-0 and 6-0 in Correct Score Home 2 market at 7.613/2 and 7.26/1