The Aston Villa midfielder takes on a greater role for Scotland and more emphasis is placed on him to carry the fight both in defence and attack.

The attacking side of his game is a bit more pronounced for Scotland as a result of the comparative lack of weapons in the national side, and this means that opponents can afford to pay McGinn more personal attention. This is apparent in the data, where McGinn attracts a lot of fouls in a Scotland shirt.

McGinn averages 1.97 fouls drawn per 90 over Scotland’s last 30 matches. In their last two matches at the Euros he was fouled three times against Switzerland and then five times against Hungary in the last match.

Indeed, this bet would have landed in seven of McGinn’s last ten international starts, with two of those matches being friendlies against Gibraltar and Finland, and the other was the World Cup opener against Germany.

It is Craig Bellamy’s first match in charge, and the Wales squad is going to go under a bit of upheaval as they continue to move away from the spine of the side that was so successful a decade or so ago. Aaron Ramsey and Joe Allen are in the twilight of their careers, Gareth Bale has retired, and Wayne Hennessey needs to be replaced long term as well.

The Welsh group is generally young and exciting, but there has to be an expected bedding-in period for a lot of these players, as well as the manager.

These two nations met each other in the Euro 2024 qualifying group and Turkey deservedly won the match in Samsun after dominating play and scoring two second half goals. The match in Cardiff was much tighter, and ended in a draw, but Turkey had arguably the better chances, and certainly ended the game with a higher xG total, 0.57-1.3 in favour of Turkey.

Turkey went on to qualify for the Euros and acquitted themselves very well, progressing to the quarter-final stages before narrowly losing to the Netherlands. Their squad also has dynamic young talent, especially in the forward areas, but they have just had that extra bit of experience in the summer, and many of them play for big European clubs.

Turkey should an extra gear that they can use in terms of the personnel that they can get onto the pitch, and although Wales do have a strong record in Cardiff, we do favour Turkey after impressing at the Euros.

Lee Carsley is in interim charge of England, and, of course, his opener is against the country that he represented 40 times at senior level.

Despite many high profile withdrawals from the England squad. Carsley has brought in a number of young players, many he has worked with at U21 level, and some that won the U21 Euros under Carsley in 2023.

That tournament victory was achieved using a style of play that some are already terming ‘Carsball’. To simplify and explain this slightly, Carsley’s U21 team were exceptionally flexible in their shape, especially in possession. There was a good, solid structure in defence, but on the ball players popped up all over the place to try and create opportunities with the ball.

This sort of change can, though, be fairly difficult to implement quickly, so although England are rightful favourites, they have the better quality players and greater experience over an Irish side that is still building, there could be some complications and uncertainty in England’s tactical plan.

Carsley’s run to the title in 2023 saw the U21s not concede a single goal, but the England senior side had a tendency to concede at least once in the Euros, even in matches that they would’ve expected to keep clean sheets in, conceding in every knockout round.

Of course, this is a new era for Ireland as well. They have gone slightly rogue with their choice of Heimir Hallgrimsson as head coach, but there is enough talent in the Irish squad to give England some concerns, especially at home, so they could easily score once in the encounter.

Narrow home defeats to higher ranked nations have been common in Ireland’s recent past. A 2-1 home defeat to the Netherlands in Euro 2024 qualification would’ve landed this bet, but a 2-0 home defeat to Greece saw Ireland generate 0.97 xG, so they created enough to score, and losing 1-0 to France in qualification also saw Ireland generate an xG of 0.67, encouraging data in hoping that they bag against the Three Lions.