Can England book their Brazil place in style ?

 

England v Poland
World Cup Qualifier
8pm ITV

SELDOM AS EASY AS IT LOOKS FOR ENGLAND

HEAD TO HEAD RECORD
(Max last 10 only)
Oct 2012 World Cup Poland 1-1 England
Oct 2005 World Cup England 2-1 Poland
Sep 2004 World Cup Poland 1-2 England
Sep 1999 Euros Poland 0-0 England
Mar 1999 Euros England 3-1 Poland
May 1997 World Cup Poland 0-2 England
Oct 1996 World Cup England 2-1 Poland
Sep 1993 World Cup England 3-0 Poland
May 1993 World Cup Poland 1-1 England
Nov 1991 Euros Poland 1-1 England

In the Davis Cup this would pretty much be regarded as a ‘dead rubber’. Poland already eliminated and England virtually guaranteed to be on the plane to Brazil.

So what can go wrong?

England’s 4-1 victory over Montenegro on Friday guaranteed them at least second place in the group, which would mean a play-off berth should they fail to win at Wembley and Ukraine record an expected victory over San Marino.

But both Hodgson and his captain Steven Gerrard were adamant that would have no impact on their approach to the game.

“As far as I’m concerned I still feel the focus is on this as a game we want to win,” Hodgson said.

“I’m not thinking of the play-offs.

Poland are expected to have around 18,000 fans at Wembley cheering them on and shouldn’t prove a walkover for England who seldom make things easy for themselves.

As our stats show though, Poland have failed to beat England once in the ten times they have met since 1991 and unlikely to break that stat tonight.

Which leaves us with just one thing to consider….. a bet on Star Sports ?

Poland (+2) looks a tempter at around evens.

STAR FORECAST
(stake between 0.5 and 10 points)
6 points win POLAND (+2) at around evens

NOT SO EASY

A technical issue on the easyJet website has meant travellers are unable to use the online check-in or booking facilities. There are reports of long queues at airports as all passengers are forced to manually check-in.