Bets provide meaning in meaningless qualifiers
FOR the second time in three nights, ITV are treating us to a meaningless dead rubber featuring an England team.
There's no point complaining, though, so let's knuckle down and find a couple of winners.
The rugby lads ended their dismal World Cup campaign with a 60-3 win over Uruguay on Saturday night but I reckon Roy Hodgson's Three Lions can go one better than that.
No, I'm not tipping them to beat Lithuania 61-3 (although I bet some mean bookie will lay you that scoreline at 250-1) but they can certainly keep a clean sheet against their shot-shy hosts.
Roy's making plenty of changes but whoever plays, England always seem to churn out underwhelming victories in these kind of matches.
I'm splitting stakes between a 2-0 and 3-0 England win and I'll also have a small bet on Spain to see off Ukraine in Kiev.
It's a classic need-to-win scenario for Ukraine, meaning that Spain have drifted to a price that's almost as tasty as a large platter of chorizo.
David Silva's injured but Juan Mata can deputise for him in one of the most like-for-like replacements of all time and if Ukraine start throwing men forward in search of a winner, Spain have the class to pick them off.
I know I'm probably going to care more about whether England and Spain win than the players do, but fingers crossed, eh?
