The England football team appear to be caught in some sort of time sensitive void where despite the passage of months and years nothing changes and everything stays the same.
For a start, they almost always have a new manager. So they are almost always on the cusp of a bright new era. Not to mention a shiny new system to try out. This time it’s three at the back. And yet the players are resolutely either the same names or the same style.
Joe Hart is still in goal for example. Daniel Sturridge is still injured. And in Dele Alli they have a midfield maestro who, for his club, can’t do any wrong yet put him in an England shirt – just like Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard before him – seems half the player.
England are 1.13 (at most green listed bookmakers) to beat the might of Lithuania on Sunday. They are 34 with Marathon and 9.8 with the same firm to get a draw. Clearly, then, we have to peruse other markets to find the value.
And we’ll do that by sticking to the principle that nothing changes with this England team. Aside from a 3-0 beating of Scotland, where they were actually rather fortunate to not concede at least twice, England always struggle when they are expected to shine. A dire 0-0 draw in Slovenia, 2-0 win against Malta, 1-0 win over Slovakia, defeat by Iceland, a bore draw v Slovakia. And you could go on and on throughout history. Stopping off, in fact, at the 3-0 win over Lithuania in 2015. But even then they needed an own goal for superiority.
So we’ll be taking 1-0 and 2-0 wins on the correct score thank you very much. The former is available at 8 with William Hill, and BetVictor. The latter at 6.3 with 32Red.
The best bet of all, however, may be on the half-time full-time double result. Expect a nervous, laboured England performance before tiring Lithuanian legs creak and wobble probably around the hour mark.
A draw at the break with England being spared their blushes by the whistle is a corker of a wager at 4.6 with Coral. In two of four qualifiers England have been level at oranges only to go on to win.
A goal at any time bet? Well, Alli fits the bill nicely. Hang on, you said he wasn’t very good? Precisely. This is exactly the sort of game that Messrs Gerrard and Lampard would cruelly give the Three Lions hope that they had morphed into midfielders capable of taking the world by storm. So the 2.35 with Sports Winner might appeal.
Calculators
