England vs Russia Prediction, Betting Tips & Preview

Preview

Joel Amorim Jun 07, 2016 @ 02:17 am

Next Saturday, 11th of June 2016, England will go head-to-head with Russia at Stade Vélodrome in Marseille on what will be the second match of Euro 2016 Group B.

After beating Australia by 2-1 late last month, England have struggled to overcome a 10-man Portuguese team at Wembley almost one week ago. The new Cagliari powerful centre back Bruno Alves picked up a red card before the break and forced Portugal to play with just 10 men until the end of the match. Fernando Santos’ men, however, showed great determination and didn’t allow England to have plenty opportunities to score. It was in fact former Chelsea flamboyant winger Ricardo Quaresma who almost opened the score for the visitors just a few moments before England’s goal. Roy Hodgson’s men managed nevertheless to find a breach in the Portuguese defensive fortress and netted the only goal of the match four minutes before the final whistle by Manchester United’s defender Chris Smalling.

England don’t have very fond memories from the matches against Russia and the Soviet Union and they certainly don’t forget the 2-1 defeat at Moscow that ruled them out from the Euro 2008 tournament and that 1988 3-1 defeat against the Soviet Union that sent Bobby Robson’s men home during the Euro 1988 that took place in the former West Germany.

As for Russia, things have been far from bright for the Eastern European team. After Leonid Slutsky took Fabio Capello’s place at the helm of the team last August, Russia rose up to claw a place in the Euro 2016 after a very poor start in the Qualification matches. Nevertheless, Leonid Slutsky’s “honeymoon” ahead of the Sbornaya seem to be over as the team’s keep failing to impress in their last matches.

After losing to France and the Czech Republic, Russia failed to get anything better than a 1-1 draw when they measured forces with Serbia last Sunday. The team’s performances have left something to be desired and Leonid Slutsky is certainly aware that his side needs to improve considerably if they want to claw a positive result against England next time out.

After losing Alan Dzagoev and Denis Cheryshev due to injury, the Russian head coach will also not be able to rely on the services of Igor Denisov who is ruled out of the tournament after suffering a hamstring injury in last Sunday’s match against Serbia.

England

Stats: W-4 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - WWWLW

Russia

Stats: W-1 L-3 D-1

Recent Form - DLLWL

Possible Line-ups

England (4-4-2 Diamond) – Hart - Walker - Cahill - Smalling - Rose - Milner - Alli - Dier - Rooney - Kane - Vardy

Russia (4-2-3-1) – Akinfeev - Smolnikov - Ignashevich - Berezutski - Torbinski - Glushakov - Ivanov - Kokorin - Shatov - Smolov - Dzyuba

Injury List / Suspended Players

England - None

Russia - Igor Denisov (inj - out for the tournament) - Alan Dzagoev (inj - out for the tournament)

Head-to-head matches:

League Positions