England v North Macedonia

It was, as predicted, a facile victory for England in Valletta on Friday night, and that maintains their 100% record so far in the Euro 2024 qualifiers.

Monday night’s fixture will be the first England home qualifier away from Wembley since 2019 and the first in Manchester since, ironically, Macedonia visited in 2006 for a Euro 2008 qualifier. The former Yugoslavian republic emerged with a creditable point on that night with a team of Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, and Frank Lampard being denied any goals at all.

Indeed, Macedonia are unbeaten in their visits to England in qualification matches. They also drew at Southampton in 2002 for Euro 2004 qualifying. If nothing else, these results serve to remind us how improved England have become at traversing these qualifying campaigns. Anything less than a win on Monday night would be seen as a huge surprise.

However, North Macedonia are no mugs, and have probably improved since those campaigns in the early 2000s. They qualified for Euro 2020 and finished 2nd in their World Cup 2022 qualifying group, but lost out in the play-offs.

Gareth Southgate’s England have become a qualification machine though and the numbers back that up. Twenty-three wins from 28 qualifiers with only one defeat in the last three campaigns tells it’s own story. As does the fact that England haven’t lost a home qualifier since the infamous Steve McClaren-led defeat to Croatia in 2007.

We have a 3/1+ England v North Macedonia bet builder for this match that has resulted from some detailed research.

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Options galore for Gareth Southgate

The news sites and newspapers have been full of praise for Trent Alexander-Arnold after his performance in midfield against Malta.

Undoubtedly, his range of passing, ability to dictate a tempo, and long-range shooting make him a real weapon for his teams. This is the case from anywhere on the pitch, and if Southgate feels as though his play at right-back doesn’t fit into the structure that he wants to employ defensively, then it is important that Alexander-Arnold is found a place to play. His talent is exceptional.

The problem is, and, as the saying goes, it is a great problem to have, is that the midfield engine room has at least a couple of superb talents in there already in the shape of Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham. Neither are the type of player that Trent Alexander-Arnold is, but they do provide physicality and dynamism. Is there room for Alexander-Arnold as well?

There is depth all over the pitch for Southgate. For a national team manager it is an envious position to be in.

The improvement in England can be seen somewhat in the research for the match, looking at England performances against teams seeded 3rd or 4th in their qualification period.

This version of England consistently keep teams away from their danger zone. Back in 2016 England faced Scotland and allowed the Auld Enemy 12 shots at their goal, no team in the middle ranking seedings since then have managed more than 6 in matches at Wembley.

This match will not be at Wembley, of course, but home trends are strong for England.

England team news

After allowing the majority of Manchester City’s players some recovery time, the treble winners should now be available for this match.

This probably means that Kyle Walker and John Stones return to defence, though Kieran Trippier could keep his place. 

Bukayo Saka is a doubt after his knock on Friday and there perhaps isn’t much need to risk him when the options for the wide forwards are so strong. James Maddison, Phil Foden, and Jack Grealish are all in contention and could be deployed as wide forwards to retain the 4-3-3 shape.

The midfield three is most likely to remain the same as the starting line-up for Malta, with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Declan Rice, and Jordan Henderson in there.

North Macedonia eager for bonus point to aid qualification

This generation of North Macedonian players will surely be looking back to those previous sides that have come to England and emerged with a precious point in qualification groups.

Whilst those points didn’t, in the end, reap qualification for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, this current team have been more successful on that front.

There is now no Goran Pandev. The former Inter forward has finally retired having become North Macedonia’s all-time record appearance maker and goalscorer. He led North Macedonia to their first finals in the last Euros and they backed that up by getting to the playoffs for World Cup qualification.

They have been ranked in the 60s in the FIFA Rankings for the last four years, which demonstrates consistency at a certain level. There are lots of players in their squad who now have great international experience, and enough who have played in the top European leagues, and now in the newly-minted Saudi league, that they won’t necessarily be intimidated by coming to Old Trafford.

It is a tricky hurdle for England to negotiate in their traverse of qualification.

North Macedonia team news

The North Macedonians tend to use a 4-3-3 in the majority of their matches. However, one wonders whether they may change to a 5-at-the-back formation as we so often see against this dangerous England side.

One thing that we can be sure of is that Visar Musliu won’t take part in the game after his sending off against Ukraine. This means a deputy will have to be found for central defence, likely Darko Velkovski.

The midfield is very talented with Elif Elmas, Enis Bardhi, and Arijan Ademi patrolling matches there. Alexsandar Trajkovski and Ilija Nestorovski are experienced and capable forwards at the sharp end of the match for North Macedonia.

England v North Macedonia Cheat Sheet

As always, England's all-time leading goalscorer Harry Kane is worth a look here for shots, shots on target and goals. Kane has nearly 3.5 shots per 90, despite often being replaced around the 60 minute mark in qualifiers, and from those manages 1.32 shots on target per 90.

With the Tottenham man clearly desperate to increase his lead at the top of the scoring charts, backing him to score in any given England qualifier will often provide decent value, and the stats show that he will have plenty of shots and get the chances required.

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England v North Macedonia bet builder tips

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