England likely to be in seventh heaven (or better) against San Marino

Possible England line-up v San Marino: Joe Hart (Man City), Glen Johnson (Liverpool), Ashley Cole (Chelsea), Joleon Lescott (Man City), Phil Jagielka (Everton), James Milner (Man City), Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Arsenal), Michael Carrick, Tom Cleverley, Wayne Rooney (all Man Utd), Jermain Defoe (Tottenham).

The FA have made a valiant attempt to use the opening of the £105million training centre in Burton to deflect attention away from the unsavoury incidents that have engulfed it, but it will take more than royalty to mask what has been a bad few weeks for everyone connected with England.

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The brand new, shiny, everything-is-obviously-going-to-be-ok-now-and-England-will-start-producing-amazing-players St. George’s Park might have got the royal seal of approval from Prince William and Kate Middleton (it was a good job for Wills that John Terry jumped before he was pushed), but apart from the fact bricks and mortar aren’t going to make English players able to pass the ball to each other any better, nothing can hide the ugly sideshow the England setup has been caught up in.

Even if we ignore manager Roy Hodgson’s ‘tubegate’ episode (Hodgson must be the only person in London who chats to people he doesn’t know on the Underground), then far more serious issues have affected England’s preparations for this week’s World Cup qualifying double header.

Terry continues to wreak havoc on the England regime and after losing the captaincy twice, seeing off Fabio Capello and effectively putting paid to the England career of several team-mates, the guilty verdict handed down by the FA to the Chelsea captain for racially abusing Anton Ferdinand has caused even more disruption than anyone could have imagined.

Whoever said there are no easy games in international football obviously never saw San Marino play. Or maybe they did and didn’t realise they weren’t playing the local pub side.

Of course, Ashley Cole rivals Terry as the most loathsome footballer of a generation and his infamous tweet last week further served to prove that footballers and intelligence do not go hand in hand. And with the FA criticised (rightly in my opinion) for making Terry’s ban too lenient, the preparation for England coming into this week has been chaotic.

Their performance on the pitch last time out wasn’t too clever, either, with England flattering to deceive during a 1-1 draw at home to Ukraine which leaves them with not a great deal of margin for error as the road to Brazil in 2014 continues apace. Thankfully for all connected with the national team, the next opponents make a mockery of the notion of competitive football.

Whoever said there are no easy games in international football obviously never saw San Marino play. Or maybe they did and didn’t realise they weren’t playing the local pub side.

I won’t say anything  more harsh than that about the little island off Italy, as poor old San Marino, the ultimate minnows, are like lambs to the slaughter in nearly every match they play and Friday is no different. England are 1/100 to win, with the draw at 14/1 and the visitors at 80/1, and even those odds probably don’t truly reflect what certainties England are here.

San Marino did once famously take the lead against Graham Taylor’s England (I think everybody did that at some point), with Davide Gualtieri scoring the only international goal of his career after just nine seconds, taking advantage of Stuart Pearce’s under-hit back-pass.

That was one of only 19 international goals San Marino have scored in their history, which is depressing enough until you read that they have lost 47 games on the trot and haven’t won since beating Liechtenstein 1-0 at home in April 2004 (which remains their only victory of any kind, ever).

So this is as easy as a match gets for England and it is just a question of how many they will score. San Marino have lost their last ten away games to an aggregate of 70-0 – an average loss of 7-0. That is really quite staggering and England can at least keep the average going.

It is 7/5 that England win despite giving San Marino a six-goal headstart and that looks good to me. Wembley is sold out and the players will want to give the crowd something to shout about.

Jermain Defoe has been in fine form for Tottenham as well as England, scoring six goals for club and country already this term, and it is worth a go on the 4/1 that he bags a hat-trick against as weak a defence as he will ever face.

Recommended bet: England to win by seven or more goals @ 7/5
Outside punt: Jermain Defoe to score a hat-trick @ 4/1

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