THE INTERNATIONAL BREAK: So it is the first International break of the season as we reflect on an excellent start to club football. Players are back with their international squads as they begin their quest to qualify for the World Cup in 2018. The break obviously means less football on during the day at the weekend, and often we see several one sided games, but I have my best three picks for the action over the next couple of days.
SLOVAKIA v ENGLAND
So a new era for English football with Big Sam taking charge of the team for his first game. I expect to see a much more rigid approach under Allardyce than we did with Hodgson, and I don’t particularly see this as the worst thing ever. Sure it won’t be the most entertaining football ever, under Big Sam it rarely is but it can’t be denied that he has always gotten results.
He has his brand of football, and it will make England a very tough side for any opposition to come up against. I can see a lot of 1-0 wins during his time in charge of England. They will be tough to watch at times, many forgettable victories but at the end of the day a win is a win. He is much better equipped tactically than Hodgson, I see his sides having much more strength mentally than they did previously.
Looking at the game this weekend I think it will be the first of many of those aforementioned forgettable victories. They travel to Slovakia which isn’t a great place to visit. the Slovaks were very good in qualifying for EURO 2016, but once there they were so disappointing. One of the weakest sides in the tournament in my opinion. Much the same can be said of England. Excellent in qualifiers but as is so often they case, underwhelming on the main stage. Nonetheless I see them scraping through in Big Sam’s first game in charge. Verdict – England win @ 2.02.
KAZAKHSTAN v POLAND
This looks like a tricky little trip for Poland, but I see them coming through this one with relative ease. They have a nice side, and I feel they should have done better than they did at EURO 2016. When they played well they were one of the better sides in the tournament, and they should have beaten Portugal. They have an excellent front duo in Lewandowski and Milik. Both players know how to find the back of the net, and they play well together as a strike force.
There is plenty of other quality in this Polish team, and their is so many of the side who are really only coming into their peak now. I expect them to have a very strong qualifying campaign as I think the team can only get better than what we saw in France. It will be a long 90 minutes for Kazakhstan in this one as I see Poland grabbing a couple of goals. Verdict – Back Poland -1 @ 1.86.
GEORGIA v AUSTRIA
This could be a tricky one for Austria. However based on the home form of Georgia in the last qualifying campaign I think they can pull off a win. Georgia were dreadful at home in the EURO 2016 qualifying. This isn’t that bad a team, they gave many teams a proper game, but they never seemed to pick up results. So it is hard to back them at home until they prove they can win some games.
Austria are another side who had a very strong qualifying campaign but were poor at EURO 2016. They were drawn in a favourable group but could not capitalise on this and ended up going home much earlier than they had anticipated. They will be looking for a real bounce back and I think they will have enough to get past the Georgians. Verdict – Back Austria @ 1.99.
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