San Marino v England
England travel to minnows San Marino tomorrow with a win likely to guarantee a place in the European Championship finals next summer. Wayne Rooney is only one goal away from equalling Sir Bobby Charlton's goal scoring record for England and he couldn't have picked better opponents to try and do it against.
San Marino are bottom of group E with a draw and five losses and have not yet scored a goal. The last three meetings between the two sides have seen England score 18 and concede none.
It appears that manager Roy Hodgson will give the chance to a few of the fringe players for this match with John Stones, Jamie Vardy and Jonjo Shelvey all coming in to start. I think the fresh look to this England side may actually be an advantage as the players coming in play without fear so there is a good chance they will rack up plenty of goals.
The average victory margin over the past three matches is six goals and that is a good place to start. England are 11/10 to win by six goals and although San Marino will just camp on the edge of their box for 90 minutes it is definitely achievable and some.
Haydock 16:55
Richard Hannon's Manaafidh looks a fine prospect and he was second in a group 3 at Sandown last time out. He looks to have improved with each of his three runs and looks superior to his stable mate Battle Pride.
I thought John Gosden's Foundation looked a fantastic horse on his debut at Haydock over this trip. Although it appears he probably didn't have much to beat that day, he did it in fine style and he has a whole host of big future entries which suggests that Gosden has extremely high hopes for him. It's a little bit of a bonus that it was at this track that Foundation made his winning debut so we know that he is comfortable here and he stands out as the bet of the day for me.
England v Australia
It's the second one day international at Lords today and England will be hoping to level the series after going down in rather disappointing circumstances on Thursday. They managed to restrict Australia to 305 and looked well in control of the chase after a good start. However, the middle order fell away quickly and the Aussies won by 59 runs in the end.
Steven Smith looked good in the first match before throwing his wicket away to a Adil Rashid full toss when on 44. He was furious with himself and will want to go on a get a big score today. He loves batting at Lords, he scored 215 here in the second test, and I think he has a good chance of going big in this one. We can back him @ 11/2 to be top batsman in this match and I think that is a good looking price.
Today's Selections
San Marino v England - England -5 on the handicap - 3 points @ 11/10
Haydock 16:55 Fondation - 3 points @ 11/8
England v Australia - Steven Smith top batsman - 1 point @ 11/2
It was available with two separate firms at 11/2 when I posted the blog. Were you looking in the top Australian batsman market rather than the top overall batsman market?
Odds checker wasn’t listing overall – I guess I should have looked harder – can u not post bookies with the tips? Sorry to be cheeky
No problem Andy, I’ll put which bookies are offering the prices next to each selection from now on.
The Smith bet didn’t win in the end anyway, Morgan passed him at the end of the match unfortunately. The other two selections more than made up for that though so a nice day in the end.
Well can’t get those odds on Steve Smith – betfair at 1.5 highest was 3.5 earlier
On the bright side got 5/4 on Foundation so nearly there and 6/5 on a free 10 point bet on England -5