ENGLAND begin their Euro 2020 qualifying campaign with a home contest against Czech Republic on Friday night. Daniel McCulloch (@DMcCulloch1984) shares his best bets.
England v Czech Republic | Friday 22nd March 2019, 19:45 | ITV
England kick-off their Euro 2020 campaign with a game which promises to be yet another routine qualifying victory for the Three Lions.
England may have lost at home to Spain in the Nations League but La Roja are comfortably the toughest opponents they’ve faced in a competitive home fixture in the last decade.
Since Steve McClaren’s unsuccessful tenure as England’s head coach, the Three Lions have played 24 home fixtures in order to qualify for major tournaments. They’ve won 21 of these and drawn three.
Their opponents on Friday night, Czech Republic, are certainly not the force they once were and I believe that their results in Group B of the Nations League gives an accurate reflection of where they are: they beat Slovakia twice but lost both matches with Ukraine.
Additionally, while the Czechs were generally competitive in the qualifiers for the last World Cup, it should be noted that they failed to score in either game against Northern Ireland and I struggle to see them troubling the scorers in this encounter.
At first glance, England to win at 3/10 may seem a little skinny but I do believe that their record and personnel support such a price. With that in mind, my initial view was to back England to win 2-0 as this has obliged in five of the aforementioned 24 matches.
Sadly, 9/2 is the best price available and not enough to tempt me so I will simply back England to win and under 3.5 goals at 5/6 with Coral. In Gareth Southgate’s first campaign as manager all five home matches saw such a bet come home and I expect him to make this six out of six on Friday evening.
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England v Czech Republic – England to win and Under 3.5 Goals (5/6 Coral)
