You Bet Its Time To Drop The Flops
Of the players that started for England on Sunday night, there were a number of players who have been the mainstay of Englands underperforming side for the last 10 years or so. William Hill are now offering just 9/1 that Hodgson drops at least eight of those for their first match of the World Cup qualifiers. He is 6/5 to remain relatively loyal to his quarter final players with 6/5 offered for eight or nine of them to start vs Moldova.
England did show sporadic flashes of ability during the Euros, although all too infrequent and all eyes now turn to the World Cup qualifying. With a supposedly easy group, England are 1/5 to qualify and 4/9 to top the group. With England still unbeaten under Roy Hodgson (not counting penalties), Hills are 5/2 to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil without losing a game. Once there Hills do not think that they have much hope of winning the tournament and they are 20/1 to lift the Jules Rimet in two years time the biggest price they have ever been for a World Cup.
England hardly impressed during the tournament, but at the same time, showed a new found resilience. A bit of tinkering from Roy could produce a winning formula for the qualifiers and we think they will breeze through to Brazil, said Hills spokesman Joe Crilly.
The Euros take pause for a few days as the semi finals loom on the horizon and William Hill are taking stock on what has been a torrid tournament for the bookies so far. Not even Englands exit has given us any cheer, said Hills spokesman Joe Crilly. Before last night, we had gone 14 games without a draw and when that happens, we are always going to take a bit of a kicking. On the plus side though, we have two fantastic semi finals in the pipeline and we reckon that turnover for the last three games could approach £10m for us alone.
William Hill Semi Finals:
7/2 Portugal; 10/11 Spain; 11/5 draw
5/6 Germany; 19/5 Italy; 11/5 Draw
Winner: 13/8 Spain; 13/8 Germany; 11/2 Portugal; 11/2 Italy
England World Cup Qualifiers:
1/5 Qualify (10/3 not to)
4/9 Top the group (13/8 not to)
5/2 Qualify without losing a group game (2/7 not to)
How many of Englands starting XI vs Italy will start vs Moldova (7/9/12): 9/1 0-3; 2/1 4-7; 6/5 8-9; 9/4 10-11
England World Cup 2014 winner: 20/1
Joe Crilly
Press Officer
Twitter: @footy_joe
T: 0208 918 3746
M: 07850 518 164
E: jcrilly@williamhill.co.uk