Dave Tindall looks ahead to the betting markets for Tuesday's matches in the Nations League, focusing on England v Finland and the Netherlands v Germany.
England v Finland
It was a decent start for England under Lee Carsley as they scored two good goals, kept a clean sheet and showed off a fair amount of attacking flair in the 2-0 away win against the Republic of Ireland on Friday night.
Carsley is a far more straightforward character than Gareth Southgate, refusing to get involved with all the noise around him not singing the national anthem, and perhaps in footballing terms he’s keeping it simple too.
England have lots of good attacking players so let them perform.
A home game with Finland is a very obvious chance to make it six points out of six in this season's Nations League and England are just 2/11 to bank the win.
We landed the 13/10 about England winning to nil in Ireland and that same bet is 8/11 here. It’s not the worst one with Finland losing 3-0 away to Greece on Friday night.
The two last met in 2001 at Anfield and Finland actually took the lead before some blokes called Michael Owen and David Beckham rescued the win.
I don’t expect it to be that tight at Wembley this time and the England players who were involved in Dublin have all reported a clean bill of health.
I think 3-0 is the sweet spot here so back that scoreline at 11/2 but also go one higher and try 4-0 at 9/1.
Harry Kane didn’t score in Dublin so will be keen to remedy that here and it’s his 100th international. Hopefully the stars are aligned for the Bayern striker to set England on their way.
Kane to score first is a 5/2 chance which is worth a go while, FYI, he’s 12/1 for the hat-trick.
Netherlands v Germany
Elsewhere, the game of the night on Tuesday has to be Netherlands v Germany in Amsterdam.
Both scored five in their Nations League openers, the Dutch beating Bosnia and Herzegovina 5-2 and Germany thumping Hungary 5-0.
And when looking at head-to-heads, the last six meetings between the pair show two wins apiece and two stalemates.
Take all that on board and the draw here makes sense at 13/5.
A couple of goalscorer bets also take the eye.
Kai Havertz fired home from the spot in the 5-0 romp against Hungary and is a decent price at 13/5 to score anytime. The numbers support that bet as he has four goals in his last seven internationals for Germany and has started the season well with Arsenal, netting in two of the Gunners’ first three fixtures.
For the Netherlands, Xavi Simons looks value to score anytime at 19/5. The 21-year-old has registered in his last two games for the Dutch, the first of those the opener in the Euro 2024 semi-final against England.
So let’s just list those best bets again.
England to beat Finland 3-0 at 11/2
England to beat Finland 4-0 at 9/1
Harry Kane to score first at 5/2
Netherlands v Germany draw at 13/5
Kai Havertz to score anytime at 13/5
Xavi Simons to score anytime at 19/5
Good luck, enjoy but please gamble responsibly
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