Free betting tips: World Cup preview of Slovenia v Scotland, Lithuania v England and Denmark v Romania

Football

Sun October 08, 2017 · 7y ago

Dave Tickner predicts late drama in Ljubljana and expects a great Dane's scoring streak to continue in Sunday's World Cup qualifiers.

And so to the final round of qualifying in Europe, where there is either everything to play for, or nothing.

Let’s start, then, with England, before moving on to potentially more interesting subjects. Like literally anything. I’ll be honest, I’ve got almost no opinion on Lithuania v England, beyond vaguely wondering why anybody would choose to watch that over the hugely significant games happening elsewhere.

Lithuania are poor, but it should go without saying for anyone who watched Thursday night’s effort against Slovenia that England are not the sort of 2/5 shots you want to be entertaining.

As much as anything else, there must be doubts over what kind of side Gareth Southgate picks; ahead of a busy period of domestic football you can be sure he’s been receiving plenty of advice from club managers.

One player who will surely play is Dele Alli, having missed Thursday’s snoozefest through suspension. But his goalscoring record for England – just two in 21 games – and a so-so start to the season at Tottenham mean he makes little appeal in the obvious goalscoring markets.

Under 2.5 goals is bigger than 6/5 in a place, and that’s probably as good as it gets for this one.

Instead let’s turn attention to Ljubljana and a legitimately huge game for Scotland against Slovenia.

The Scots’ own last-gasp winner on Thursday has put them in with a great chance of taking second spot and with it a play-off as they bid to reach the World Cup for the first time in 20 years.

A glance at the table puts Scotland in pole position, sitting second and two points clear of Slovakia ahead of the final round of games. But that’s not the whole story. For while Scotland face the tough trip to face solid, redoubtable Slovenia, Slovakia have a home penalty kick against Malta.

Scotland, therefore, almost certainly need a win. Slovenia for their part definitely need a win, and then to hope that something strange happens in Trnava.

Chris Martin celebrates his late winner against Slovenia at Hampden

And that leads to the best bet in this one. You can get a shade under 6/4 for the last goal in this game to come in the final quarter of an hour (plus injury-time). Even ignoring the context of Sunday’s games, that looks a price.

There has been at least one late goal in Slovenia’s last five games in this group, and in five of Scotland’s nine qualifiers to date. The reverse fixture at Hampden was settled in the 88th minute by Christ Martin.

Throw in the very plausible scenario that at least one and possibly both these sides will have no choice but to throw caution to the wind in the closing stages and the prospect for late drama becomes compelling.

Elsewhere, an obvious bet but a worthwhile one nonetheless, with Christian Eriksen available at 13/8 to find the net for Denmark against Romania.

The Tottenham schemer has scored in his last five international games and has seven goals in his last seven and 11 in his last 12. He’s also found the net in two of his last four Premier League games for Spurs.

Only Cristiano Ronaldo, Robert Lewandowski and Romelu Lukaku have scored more goals than Eriksen during this qualifying campaign, and it’s fair to say none of them would be anything like 13/8 to score in a meaningful home game against Romania.

That’s childishly simplistic, of course – Lewandowski has, ludicrously, scored twice as many as Eriksen – but the fact remains that 13/8 is too generous given the great Dane’s current form.