ALEX CROOK PREVIEW: Ukraine v England

talkSPORT’s chief football correspondent ALEX CROOK previews UKRAINE v ENGLAND at 5pm on Saturday with his recommended selections on starsports.bet including a BOOSTED treble on the Euro 2024 Qualifier.

⚽ UKRAINE v ENGLAND

Euro 2024 Qualifier
5pm Saturday LIVE ON CHANNEL 4

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Arguably the most annoyingly-placed international break for club managers brings up a potentially tricky double header for England.

Just as the domestic season is finding its stride, we pause from Premier League festivities for a fortnight to allow the Three Lions to take centre stage.

Gareth Southgate’s squad, which, much to a lot of peoples’ displeasure, looks remarkably similar to the one he picked for the last international break in June, take on Ukraine in their latest Euro 2024 qualifier on Saturday before renewing old rivalries with Scotland on Tuesday.

The game with Ukraine, switched to Poland due to the ongoing conflict in their homeland, is also a match-up of the top two in Group C.

England are looking to make it five wins from five to plant one foot firmly in the finals in Germany next summer while also continuing their sensational form in front of goal.

Southgate’s men are top-scorers in qualifying of all the European nations after banging in 15 goals in their four games so far, thanks in no small part to the 7-0 routing of North Macedonia at Old Trafford in June.

They have also conceded just once, in their impressive 2-1 win over reigning champions Italy in Naples, and inflicted upon Ukraine their only defeat in 13 Euro qualifiers with a comfortable 2-0 success at Wembley in March.

While there will still be a big contingent of Ukraine fans in attendance, the fact this game is being played on neutral ground largely takes away that key element of home advantage for the team led by former Tottenham and West Ham striker Serhiy Rebrov.

Ukraine will try and be defensively stubborn and look to use the pace of the in-form Viktor Tsyhankov, set to be preferred to Chelsea’s struggling Mykhailo Mudryk, to hit them on the counter-attack.

But England are used to overcoming these kind of tactics and have too much attacking quality to be kept at bay for too long.

Both their goals in the reverse meeting came before half-time, in fact, the free-scoring Lions have netted two or more goals in the first half of all four qualifying games so far.

That makes England to be winning at half-time and full-time at 11/10 with starsports.bet a very tempting starting point.

Harry Kane has scored five goals in the first four group games and has three in his last two games against Ukraine.

England’s all-time record goalscorer has settled in nicely at Bayern Munich and I would expect him to once again translate his club form in the international stage.

Kane features prominently in my BOOSTED build-a-bet (see below) and I also fancy a repeat if England’s 2-0 win at Wembley in the same bet.

I don’t think Ukraine will be easily rolled over and a two-goal winning margin feels about right.

It will be interesting to see how experimental Southgate is with his defence given that John Stones and Luke Shaw, two stalwarts from the last two tournaments, are not available.

Harry Maguire was taunted by the Arsenal fans when he came off the bench during Manchester United’s 3-1 defeat at the Emirates on Sunday, but seems to find a new freedom when he pulls on an England shirt, so I do not have any genuine concerns about him starting.

He will be expected to guide a rookie partner in either Marc Guehi, Lewis Dunk or Levi Colwill through the game, but whoever comes in should embrace this as an opportunity to stake their claim for a place on the plane to Germany.

Ben Chilwell of Kieran Trippier are more than adequate replacements for the injured Shaw, so it is not hard to envisage another England shutout. England to win to nil is 23/20 with starsports.bet

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