England welcome Lithuania to Wembley on Sunday for their 5th game of World Cup Qualifiers. Currently, England top the group, undefeated in the previous 4 outings, accumulating 10 points. The last two times these two met were in the Euro Qualifiers where England won 4-0 at home and 3-0 away.
Lithuania are currently in third place and trail second by just three points. In their last game, they lost 4-0 away to Slovakia meaning they will be determined more than ever to pick up a positive result here.
After England’s outstanding performance on Wednesday night against Germany where they played a formation with 3 at the back, they are likely to play this formation once again. Although the loss against Germany was upsetting to see, especially after such good play, the performance should give us confidence because after all, we outplayed the current World Cup Champions.
It is more than likely that Southgate will make a series of changes from Wednesday’s game. With Gary Cahill suspended and Chris Smalling injured (yes, another casualty to this international break), Joe Hart is expected to captain England at Wembley. Ross Barkley and Raheem Sterling will also be hoping to feature after not making an appearance against Germany. And hopefully we will get a chance to see the beautiful link up between Marcus Rashford and Jesse Lingard (who has been in exceptional form) again.
We know for a fact that Lithuania will be resilient in keeping England out, but the question is, how long will they manage to do so? Gary Cahill said after the disappointing result against Germany, that England must be more clinical in front of goal. I’m sure we will manage to create chances against Lithuania, lets just hope we can convert them.
I’ll be at the game so the match analysis may be uploaded a little late! Come on ENGLAND!