England To Edge Past Estonians

England look to maintain their 100% record in Euro 2016 qualification when they go to Estonia this weekend.

FORM
After a slightly unexpected opening match win against Slovenia, Estonia were brought back down to earth by a 1-0 defeat in Lithuania on Thursday night. Magnus Pehrsson’s side were downed by a Saulius Mikoliunas strike midway through the second half, with Ken Kallaste then sent off for a second yellow card late on in proceedings.

Aside from that win against Slovenia, Estonia have won only one of their previous seven fixtures, with that victory coming against lowly Tajikistan and a home draw against Gibraltar included in that period. Only in the 2-1 win against Tajikistan did they manage to score more than one goal in a game during their last eight outings, and have failed to find the back of the net in five of those games.

England’s 5-0 win over San Marino in midweek provided very few talking points other than the recurring question of whether European football’s minnows should be required to go through a pre qualification process; a debate for another day.

Wayne Rooney had little to complain about as he moved another step closer to becoming England’s all-time record goalscorer, while Roy Hodgson can at least boast of four consecutive clean sheets for his team. Danny Welbeck now has three goals in his last two outings in an England shirt.

Team News
Estonia’s Ken Kallaste will miss the game through suspension following the aforementioned red card that he received against Lithuania.

We shouldn’t expect too many changes to England’s side after Roy Hodgson named an XI close to his strongest possible for the run out against San Marino. Andros Townsend and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain made impacts from the bench, but neither is likely to force their way into the starting line-up.

Head-to-Head
The two nations were drawn alongside one another in qualifying for Euro 2008.

England won both matches by emphatic 3-0 scorelines, with Wayne Rooney getting on the scoresheet in the home game.

Michael Owen and Peter Crouch were amongst the goalscorers in Tallinn.

Recommended Bets
England will be tested considerably more so here than they were at Wembley on Thursday night, but the outcome is unlikely to be too dissimilar. At odds of 2/9 for another three points I fully expect the Three Lions to reward any short-priced backers. If you’re looking to irk a little more value out of the match result then I’d suggest a bet on the 5/6 that England win without conceding a goal.

I also like the look of England -2 in the Handicap market at odds of 15/8. Estonia don’t score many and England don’t concede many, so we should see this bet land if Rooney, Welbeck & co can score three. Although far from being prolific, I feel that 15/8 represents a good value bet here.