Next Monday, 8th of September 2014, England will travel to Basel to go head-to-head with Switzerland at the St. Jakob-Park for both sides’ Euro 2016 Qualifiers opening match.

The English supporters still haven’t forgotten their side’s mediocre performance at the World Cup last Summer and a great deal of them decided to stay at home instead of going to Wembley to support their team on the match against Norway during the week.

In fact, it is fair to say that they didn’t lose much, since the match was far from being glamourous. England won 1-0 thanks to a goal by their new captain, Wayne Rooney, but the team’s overall performance left something to be desired. The international retirement of Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard forced Roy Hodgson to reinvent his centre midfield duo and on the match against Norway he experimented with Jordan Henderson and Jack Wilshere in the middle, but and although it was not an utter failure, it was far from being brilliant. Hodgson opted for a different tactical style, as he displayed his team in a classic 4-4-2 style with Rooney and Sturridge up front, backed up by two quick wide midfielders/wingers Sterling and Oxlade-Chamberlain, but this new approach didn’t produce the results he was expecting. England looked fairly slow during the first-half and team’s midfield and forward lines seemed somewhat disconnected.

For the match against Switzerland, Hodgson will need to put up something very special if he wants to grab something positive from the match as England will face a far more complicated opponent than the Norwegians. The English manager will not be able to rely on Jack Colback’s contribution, since he is sidelined due to injury, and he is not yet certain if Gary Cahill will be 100% fit for the match as he suffered a knock during the match against Norway last Wednesday.

As for the Swiss side, the match against England marks the beginning of new era for them and it will be interesting to see how the team will react to the departure of Ottmar Hitzfeld. Their new manager, the 51-year old Serbian Vladimir Petkovic, has probably the best generation of Swiss footballers at his disposal and such luck certainly increases the levels of demand behind his task.

Switzerland hasn’t taken part in any match since they were eliminated from the World Cup by the Argentinean team, on a match that, in fact, could have had a fairly different outcome.

The last time both sides measured forces at Swiss territory was back in 2010 and England grabbed an easy 3-1 win. Nevertheless, and although one might consider England as favourites for next Monday’s match, history might not repeat itself.

Switzerland

Stats: W-3 L-1 D-0

Recent Form - LWLWW

England

Stats: W-1 L-2 D-2

Recent Form - WDLLD

Possible Line-ups

Switzerland (4-2-3-1) – Sommer - Lichsteiner - Djourou - Bergen - Rodriguez - Behrami - Inler - Shaqiri - Xhaka - Mehmedi - Drmic

England (4-4-2) – Hart - Stones - Cahill - Jones - Baines - Henderson - Wilshere - Oxlade-Chamberlain - Sterling - Rooney - Sturridge

Monday, 8th of September 2014 20h45 CET (19h45 GMT)

Prediction

Switzerland 1 England 1