Three Lions 12-1 for perfect qualifying group

THOSE who want to enhance Saturday’s viewing with a bet on England versus Malta won’t get rich backing the Three Lions at 1-40 in the match odds so will need to look for other avenues to make it pay at Wembley.

A home win to nil is 1-3 with Coral and bookmakers ask Gareth Southgate’s side to give up four goals on the handicap, although Malta did not lose any of their European Championship qualifiers by more than three.

The 5-1 loss to Scotland last time out was heavily influenced by a red card (Malta finished with nine men) and the last time they lost a competitive game by more than four goals was a 6-0 defeat in Denmark in 2013.

Marcus Rashford and Daniel Sturridge are 3-1 joint-favourites to open the scoring and the Manchester United teenager is 6-1 to grab a Wembley hat-trick.

Rashford is also available at 2-5 with a number of firms to notch as Southgate looks to make a winning start to the job.

Southgate has four matches to stake his claim – World Cup qualifiers against Malta, Slovenia and Scotland – as well as the friendly fixture with Spain and bet365 are offering 8-1 about England winning all of those.

Tuesday’s trip to Slovenia looks much more difficult than the Malta contest and bet365 go 11-10 England are unbeaten in qualifying and they also offer 12-1 for them to win every match.

England are 2-9 to win Group F, while Scotland are 8-1 but Group D is promising to be a tighter affair with four nations – Wales, Ireland, Austria and Serbia – locked together on four points after two matches.

Wales are 2-1 with Coral to top the section following their 2-2 draw in Austria and Ireland can be backed at a general 9-2 after a 1-0 win over Georgia.

Coral go evens that Wales reach the World Cup and Ireland are 5-2.