Belgium v England
Sunday November 15, 19:45
TV: live on Sky Sports Red Button
Goals at both ends but cards to stay in the ref’s pocket
I certainly wouldn’t want to be calling the winner here between two such well-matched sides. Belgium famously beat England twice at the last World Cup but England hit back the last time they played, winning 2-1 at Wembley in the first match of their Nations League double-header.
I’d go as far as saying that if England can beat the number 1 side in the FIFA rankings on their own patch in a match that matters, then they probably deserve to go favourites for Euro 2021, after a highly impressive last 12 months. Let’s wait and see.
But back to our same-game multi-bet. I’ve had a theory for a while that England are one of the best sides in the world when it comes to keeping clean sheets against weaker sides but rarely manage it against the best sides. The stats largely back up that theory.
In their last year or so there were clean sheets against the likes of Ireland, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Wales and Iceland but not against Denmark, the Czech Republic away or indeed, Belgium, last time out. So I’d be very surprised if they keep one here in what is one of international football’s hardest away days. And I’d be surprised if they didn’t score at least one themselves.
Bizarrely, they failed to score against Denmark in two attempts over the past two months but both were somewhat excusable. The first one was an awful game where nothing happened all match, the second saw them lose Harry Maguire to a red card within half an hour. They’ve scored in each of their other 10 games against anyone who isn’t Denmark and should do so again. Both teams to score is 4/6.
This game should be low on cards. I think the best teams tend to be the most disciplined in this regard and these are two of the best. Here’s the number of cards in England’s last ten matches: 0, 9 (!), 2, 3, 1, 5, 1, 1, 1, 4. Those nine were in an extremely ill-tempered affair against Denmark at Wembley and whereas I’m not saying it doesn’t count, it really was out of character for an England game.
As for Belgium it was: 1, 1, 2, 4, 1, 3, 1, 1, 6, 3. So that’s 8/10 and 7/10 for these two teams going under four cards, including when they played last time out when there were just two. A good chance to back under 40 points at 13/10. The double comes to 3.96.
England strong on corners, Lukaku strong on goals
Another theory I have is that England have just about been the most reliable side in international football when it comes to getting lots of corners.
It’s a strange one because over the last decade or so they’ve had different managers, different players and different systems yet the high corner counts just keep on coming. One reason I put it down to is that unlike a few sides I could mention (Barcelona, Man City), they actually don’t mind getting corners! For a few other teams it’s almost like a corner is a dirty or unlikely way to get a goal so they don’t play for them. England do. They managed more corners than their opponents in five of their last six, the odd one out being a draw (2-2 on corners) against Denmark.
In Belgium’s last six, they won it just twice with one draw and three ‘losses’. It was 7-5 last time out to Gareth Southgate’s men, admittedly with England at home, and 13/8 on the Three Lions winning the corner match bet is too good to turn down.
I’m not entirely sure what went wrong with Romelu Lukaku to the extent that he wanted to leave and that Man Utd were happy to let him go. But I do know that United’s loss was Inter Milan’s gain.
Last season 54 appearances for club and country yielded 38 goals and this season he’s already on 10 from 11 games. He scored Belgium’s sole goal against England last time and seems to be on penalty duty ahead of Kevin de Bruyne, though we’ll have to see whether he’s ahead of Eden Hazard in the pecking order. It’s no more than a bonus if he is on penalties because he’s perfectly capable of scoring at least one from open play. It’s 7/5 Lukaku scores at anytime and that will do me just fine. Double comes to 6.0.
Source: BetFair Tips
