World Cup Qualifying Groups

England’s Opponents

 So England have found out who they will face in attempting to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

In a very uninspiring group England have landed Poland, Hungary, Albania, Andorra and San Marino.

The mighty Andorra and San Marino in the same group just shows how bad the qualifying stages for tournaments are and just why it was felt that there was a need for a competition like the Nations League.

England should have no problems whatsoever qualifying from this group. Poland will perhaps pose a test especially given that they have one of the best strikers in the world in Lewandowski.

But other than that I expect to see routine 3, 4 and more to nil wins over the others.

Given that the first three fixtures of this campaign are in March, when we will be approaching the business end of a very congested season, I would expect Southgate to again name a bigger than usual squad and rotate players from game to game.

It will give many fringe players one last chance to impress and secure a place in the squad for the Euro’s.

I believe he probably knows about half his squad for the tournament with a good 20 odd players battling it out for the other spots.

It will also be interesting to see what system he uses in these qualifiers. Do we really need five at the back and holding midfielders against teams that are just going to sit back and try and defend? My answer is most certainly no.

But in a caveat to that, if he is going with 3-4-3 for the tournament then what is the point in changing the system and going more attacking against the poor teams?

Either way he can’t really win in my opinion but I also believe whether he goes attacking or defensive we will fall short against the very best. For that reason I would still like to see us play as many of our attacking players as possible and go for it a bit more and be better to watch.

It is impossible to get all of Kane, Sterling, Rashford, Grealish, Foden, Mount etc in to the same team but playing five defenders and two holding midfielders will give little to no service to the three attacking players that he does go with.

Many players could end up missing the tournament through injury given the schedule between now and then and the Premier League’s refusal to use five substitutes like almost every other league in Europe. I can see why some teams would be against it but we have already seen a lot of muscle injuries so far this season.

There is a feeling that it favours the big boys, which it probably does, but everything favours the big boys already anyway and that will always be the case now I fear.