England » Friendly
England v Belgium, Saturday 2nd June 15:00
50 points under 2.5 goals, best odds 1.97 @ 188bet
or bet £10 risk free at Skybet
England’s final warm-up game ahead of Euro 2012 sees them come up against a talented Belgian side who narrowly failed to qualify and will come to London with a full strength line-up, as Marc Wilmots men look to prove to the world that they have one of the most promising young teams in International football.
The traditional pre-tournament Wembley send-off could be a muted one, considering England’s inept performance last Saturday in their 1-0 friendly win over Norway. Roy Hodgson’s default setting is an ultra-defensive, maintaining-the-shape-of-the- team-at-all-costs approach, and it’s more than likely he will call on the Chelsea back three of Terry, Cahill and Cole to provide this platform.
I’d expect to see a tight, possession based game at Wembley as the tricky Belgian attack are repelled by a West London brick wall of an English team that will look to soak up pressure and hit the Belgian’s on the counter-attack.
Belgium’s previous two away friendly’s ended in a 1-1 draw to Greece and a 0-0 versus France in Paris (the French are similar to England in that they have decent players who can’t play together as a team unit, and so fail to create many scoring opportunities in the attacking third of the pitch).
In fact, 7 out of Belgium’s last 9 friendly encounters have ended in fewer than 2.5 goals being scored. Manchester City and Belgium Captain, Vincent Kompany, is part of a strong defensive spine, with Jan Vertonghen and Marouane Fellaini, that will ensure there will be limited chances for the home team to find the net before they fly off to their base camp in Poland next week.
England will probably play in a similar style to Chelsea in their Champions League final victory, the experience of those Chelsea defenders will dictate the pattern of England’s play; the exciting Belgian youngsters, Hazard, Dembele, Lukaku and Mertens, will try to dominate the ball and play it quickly, while England sit back and hope the right moment comes to counter Belgium with the pace of Theo Walcott and guile of Ashley Young.
