Will Southgate return glory to England?

8/1 to win a major tournament

England manager Gareth Southgate leads his side into Sunday’s World Cup qualifier against Lithuania with punters guessing at how many the Three Lions will win by. Five, six? You can bet on a number of markets, including handicap, right here at Coral.

Victory over the minnows of international football will go some way to cementing England’s place in next summer’s World Cup. They are already top of Group F, showing three wins and a draw, with the best of those a morale boosting 3-0 cheer vs Scotland last time.

Qualification is expected

It takes a lot to get the Wembley faithful excited these days though, and qualification no longer gets their blood pumping. It’s not so much required – as expected. England are famous for strolling through the early stages, and Southgate looks set to continue that proud tradition.

Does the gaffer have what it takes to go a step further and make a dent in the World Cup proper? More importantly, does he have the players at his disposal to do anything close to winning in Russia? Coral traders aren’t feeling incredibly patriotic on that one, and although they are no more than 1/12 to qualify as group winners, our punters can have a heavyweight 18/1 on England rolling back the years and winning a second World Cup.

Southgate – a former leader of England’s U21s – guided the colts to the 2015 European Championships, but, as a group, they failed to impress. England, dropped into pool B alongside Portugal, Sweden and Italy, ended bottom of the pile, embarrassingly. A CV of one win and two defeats saw them go down to Portugal and Italy, both quite convincingly, while beating Sweden 1-0, but needing a late goal from Lingard to achieve it.