World Cup Wales v England tips: Three Lions set to put out Dragons' fire

Sergiu Baltuta
29 November 2022

England's Harry Kane and USA's Tyler Adams battle for the ball

Tipstrr football expert Sergiu Baltuta has been casting his eye over tonight's World Cup action, and thinks England have what it takes to snuff out the fire of the brave Welsh dragons.

England's failure to beat the USA on Friday ruined their chance to secure early qualification for the knockout rounds, but they remain in excellent shape to do so, as only a heavy defeat against Wales will threaten their progress.

England started the World Cup with an eyecatching 6-2 win against Iran to put them in pole position, only for Friday's disappointing goalless draw against USA to quieten all the premature talk of football coming home.

Gareth Southgate's team seemed overly cautious and were a pale shadow of the team that had dismantled Iran so impressively, managing just three shots on target and three corners in the entire ninety minutes.

The fitness and form of Harry Kane has been the subject of much discussion, but this might be just the kind of blood-and-thunder game in which his strengths could make the difference, although he will need the players around him to sparkle more than they did against USA.

Wales, on the other hand, need a win against England if they want their World Cup adventure to extend beyond the group stage.

Their opening 1-1 draw with the USA looks a little better in the context of England's struggles against the Americans, but then Wales were surprisingly defeated by Iran 2-0 in a game they had high hopes of winning.

In those first two games Wales had only six shots on target, and despite his penalty against the USA, star talisman Gareth Bale has been generally disappointing, especially in the game against Iran.

However, although Wales sit at the bottom of Group B, all is not completely lost and mathematically they can still qualify.

Victory against England is mandatory and at the same time they would need the game between USA and Iran to end all square. If either of those two teams wins, then the Welsh would need to beat England by four or more goals to qualify at England's expense, a seemingly unlikely scenario.

The two teams last met competitively at the 2016 Euros, when England scraped a narrow 2-1 victory before their ignominious exit at the hands of Iceland.

Further to that, in one interview Luke Shaw has pointed out that the team has been motivated by a video of Welsh players celebrating England's elimination at that tournament.

Wales are unlikely to go gung-ho in search of an improbable four-goal victory, and will probably settle on keeping things tight and hoping to sneak the narrow win that will be enough if Iran draw with the USA.

However, England will be looking to win the group on their own terms, and should the Welsh game plan fail and they concede first, then it could well be a case of one-brings-two as the game opens up with Wales needing to search for goals.