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England Under-21s get back on the road to Israel on Thursday with a trip to their Icelandic counterparts in the second match of their 2013 European U21 Championship qualifying group.
Stuart Pearce’s men, desperately poor at this summer’s finals where they failed to win and were comprehensively shown up in every match they played, are strong favourites to win at 31/50. Iceland are priced up at 15/4 outsiders for a home win, with the draw a 27/10 shot with bwin.
Pearce’s men have made a reasonable start to making up for the wreckage of their tournament in Denmark, when the supposed future of English football displayed all of the traits that have kept England so far behind internationally for decades – lack of technique, inability to keep possession and a tactical ineptness that places the need for ‘passion’ as the main attribute.
Two comfortable home wins, 4-1 against Israel and 6-0 against Azerbaijan, go some way to making up for that but the problems are so deep-rooted that nothing is likely to change, especially while Pearce is in charge – his presence in the dug out contravenes the FA’s youth development programme as much as anything else.
And despite the prices available, this is no gimme for England. Iceland also reached the 2011 European Championships, finishing above Germany in qualifying, and unlike England actually managed to win a match at the finals, beating Denmark 3-1.
Although the young Lions, on paper at least, should have enough talent to win – even if Phil Jones, Kyle Walker (England’s best performer in the summer) and the in-form Danny Welbeck are now in Fabio Capello’s senior squad – at strong odds on the prospect of backing them hardly set the pulse racing.
Iceland actually beat (an admittedly much-changed) England 2-1 at Deepdale in March so will be fairly confident of a repeat. They are a reasonably priced 11/10 to avoid defeat.
The best bets may come in the goals markets. Despite England’s last two high-scoring encounters, eight of their last ten matches away from home (including this summer’s Euro matches) have seen less than 2.5 goals, with both teams scoring on just three occasions.
That tells you a lot about the way Pearce sets up his team and with their attacking options hardly looking inspiring – Nathan Delfouneso, Marvin Sordell and Martyn Waghorn are the only strikers in the squad – it may make sense to have a play at the 21/20 the match sees less than three goals or taking a punt on one or both teams to fail to score at the same price.
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