It’s a battle between the Auld Enemy on Tuesday evening, as Scotland host England in a ‘friendly’ match at Hampden Park. We’ve previewed this one for you and given you our suggested selections for the occasion.
Tuesday night sees the resumption of the oldest international rivalry in football, as Scotland (3/1) take on England (8/11) in the 150th Anniversary Heritage Match.
The two first faced off on St Andrews Day, 1872, in front of around 3-4000 fans at the West of Scotland Cricket Club. Just like 148 years later at Euro 2020, the fixture ended goalless but an intense rivalry was born.
Now 151 years later, the two will do battle again, with both sides in excellent form in the European Championship qualifiers.
Scotland, in particular, are flying. They are possibly the form team in Europe right now, are unbeaten in 11 straight qualifiers and on Friday comfortably beat Cyprus for their 5th straight win to top Group A.
The 3-0 victory came courtesy of yet another Scott McTominay goal, as well as strikes from Ryan Porteous and John McGinn.
England, meanwhile, had their first slip up on Saturday, dropping their first points in an uninspiring draw against Ukraine, in Wroclaw.
Kyle Walker spared the Three Lions blushes with his first international goal, after Oleksandr Zinchenko had fired the war-torn country into an early lead.
Gareth Southgate’s men are still atop of Group C but plenty of questions have been asked about his selection of players not even starting for their club sides or playing in weaker leagues abroad.
Team news:
Steve Clarke has no fresh injury concerns ahead of this highly anticipated friendly.
Southgate is again without Jack Grealish and Trent Alexander-Arnold, who withdrew from the squad through injury.
As an added spark to a match which didn’t need one, Newcastle United striker Harvey Barnes has indicated he may be open to a switch of allegiance to the Tartan Army, after being snubbed again for England selection.
Match Result – Draw – 13/5
If this match was a Euro2024 qualifier, I would have been extremely tempted to have gone along with my colleague Jonny Webb in his Scotland vs England Bet Builder Tips and gone for a Scotland win.
However, this is a friendly match and try as they might, I don’t think the crowd and Scottish team will have quite the same sort of intensity they would have done for a competitive fixture.
Yes, England looked extremely lacklustre in Poland and barely created a chance in the last half an hour but they do possess extremely high quality throughout the side and should be able to hold Scotland.
With everything weighed up and far bigger games to come down the line for both outfits, I’m going to go for the stalemate at Hampden and a probable score draw.
Phil Foden anytime scorer – 12/5
One man who can count himself extremely unfortunate to not start against Ukraine was Phil Foden.
The Manchester City star was one of England’s best players at the World Cup but was left out for new Spurs signing James Maddison.
The former Leicester man has had an impressive start to life at Tottenham but I was surprised to see Foden start from the bench.
Southgate is expected to start Foden and Rashford from the start on Tuesday and I think the 23-year-old can get himself on the scoresheet here.
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