England return to action tonight fresh off a comprehensive victory over Bulgaria on Saturday. This time they take on one of the newer teams to take part in qualifying for the European Championships, Kosovo.
The Three Lions have made the perfect start to qualifying, three wins out of three, topping Group A, and now face a side at Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium that only played its first competitive international match in 2016. England are ranked fourth in the world while Kosovo’s latest ranking is 120 – this all tends to suggest an easy win for the hosts.
However, we’re not convinced. Yes, we think England will win, but we’re not expecting a walkover. Kosovo are unbeaten in their last 15 matches and come into the game fresh off a 2-1 win over the Czech Republic. With this in mind we’re going to avoid bets that involved multiple or anytime goalscorers.
However, we did note that Harry Kane looked very confident in scoring a hat trick on Saturday, including two penalties. He has now scored 18 goals for his country while wearing the captain’s armband, and only three players stand above him in this statistic. Alan Shearer and Bryan Robson are two goals ahead while Vivian Woodward has 23. Kane loves his stats, and we think he will have his eye on this one. Thus we’ll take the 5/2 on offer that he scores the first goal tonight.
Recommendation: Kane to score first, 1 pt, at 5/2, Betway
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