Football betting tips: World Cup qualifying
2pts England to win 1-0, 2-0 or 3-0 at 13/8 (Sky Bet)
0.5pt Marc Guehi to score anytime at 7/1 (General)
0.5pt Ezri Konsa to score anytime at 8/1 (General)
Win on Tuesday and England will qualify for next year's World Cup; at a general 1/20, I think we can safely start booking flights.
This has the feel of a fixture to be endured rather than get excited about. Latvia, in the reverse fixture, Albania and Andorra (twice) have all been on the receiving end of no frills England wins during this qualification campaign. That could very well be the case once again.
All four of those matches involved three goals or fewer. Even last week's steamrolling of Wales fell into that bracket as Thomas Tuchel's side eased off having raced into an early 3-0 lead.
Every game overseen by the German, other than a much-changed XI's 3-1 defeat by Senegal, has been won to-nil and most recently Jordan Pickford made history by breaking World Cup-winning Gordon Banks' record to become the first England goalkeeper to keep eight successive clean sheets.
It's hard to envisage Latvia breaking Pickford's streak.
If you split your stake appropriately and backed ENGLAND TO WIN across three separate correct scores of 1-0, 2-0 and 3-0, no matter which score came in you would not be able to match the potential profit of the 13/8 being offered by Sky Bet to back all three of those scores as one bet.
That is also a significant bump on the best price of 6/5 about England to win and under 3.5 goals, which gives the bookies far too much margin given it includes the highly unlikely 2-1 (16/1) scoreline.
Latvia may be ranked 137th in the world, but they are pretty good at avoiding a hiding, only conceding more than three goals twice in their past 22 fixtures.
For two smaller side bets, I am sticking with backing England defenders to score after plugging away throughout World Cup qualifying.
Of course, as luck would have it I declined to tip either MARC GUEHI or EZRI KONSA against Serbia last month, the one game they both found the net in.
I was on Guehi and Stones for a shot on target and to score against Wales. Tuchel then named Konsa in his XI at right-back as well.
Guehi provided two assists and Konsa the other. Remarkable.
That feels highly unlikely to happen again, and at encouraging prices of 7/1 and 8/1 respectively TO SCORE ANYTIME they both look worth backing.
In England's five qualifiers, four of their 12 goals have been scored by defenders.
Odds correct at 1430 BST (13/10/25)
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