England 7-0 Montenegro
England are through to the Euro 2020 finals thanks to a thumping victory over Montenegro, with Captain Marvel Harry Kane scoring a first half hat-trick.
An expectant crowd packed into Wembley Stadium to celebrate England’s 1,000th fixture and the young lions delivered in style, blowing their visitors away with five first half goals. The big Euro 2020 news in the run up to this week’s games was the training ground spat between Raheem Sterling and Joe Gomez, which resulted in Sterling being left out of the squad.
And the Manchester City man, who has been in scintillating form for his club, must have wondered how many goals he would have scored on a night when England tore through their visitors’ defence at will.
Highlights of the game
The floodgates opened on ten minutes when Trent Alexander-Arnold switched the ball to Ben Chilwell and the Leicester City man floated a lovely chip over the Montenegro defence and into the path of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. The Ox took one touch before rifling his shot across the keeper and into the corner of the net. The Liverpool man has been in fine form, scoring four goals in his last three starts, but this was his first for England since June 2017. And it was heartily deserved after a long injury lay-off.
Eight minutes later England doubled the lead with a goal of classic simplicity. Chilwell picked up his second assist of the night, curling in a free-kick which Kane stooped to steer his header beyond the keeper and into the corner of the net; and that was pretty much game over.
Chilwell made it three assists, on 24 minutes, with a perfectly judged corner right onto the head of Kane who beat Montenegro keeper Milan Mijatovic with ease.
As England ran riot three became four on the half hour mark when Oxlade-Chamberlain crossed for Harry Maguire to head towards goal. Mijatovic made a brave stop only to see the ball bounce out into the path of Marcus Rashford and the Manchester United man fired the ball home.
With 35 minutes on the clock Kane scored his third and England’s fifth, and it was an absolute beauty. Alexander-Arnold swung in a low cross and the Spurs man turned his defender cleverly before firing his low shot into the corner.
Mason Mount thought he’d scored number six but his effort was ruled marginally offside. And, on 56 minutes Gareth Southgate gave his captain a well earned rest, replacing him with Chelsea’s Tammy Abraham.
After Rashford showed an electric turn of pace to get the bi-line, he crossed and as the ball bounced around the box Abraham was ready to pounce, but it flew into the net off the underside of the crossbar from the knee of the unlucky Aleksandar Sofranac.
Abraham did get his goal on 84 minutes, when Chilwell burst forward, before releasing Jadon Sancho who put a low cross into the danger area and the in-form Chelsea man made no mistake.
Key statistics
This was a Rolls Royce performance from Gareth Southgate’s young side and it was all about the goals.
England stuck five past their opponents in the March clash in Montenegro, with Ross Barkley scoring a brace. Tonight the Three Lions matched that feat in the first half!
Southgate’s boys have scored 32 goals in a single calendar year for the first time since 1982, and it was the quickest 5-0 lead since 1946, when England went 5-0 up in a friendly against the Netherlands.
Harry Kane has scored 24 goals when starting as a captain for England and that is a record, and he’s the first player to bag consecutive hat-tricks for his country at Wembley, having hit three past Bulgaria last time out.
The Spurs man is now up to sixth place on the list of all time England scorers.
What a captain and what a player!
What’s next?
Keep an eye on the Euro 2020 betting tips as the finals approach next year. It’s going to be another spectacular showcase and England will be right up there with the favourites.
There’s still another game to play to conclude Group A when the Three Lions head to Kosovo on Sunday. But Montenegro’s campaign is over and they have a home friendly against Belarus next week.
Then the England players return to Premier League action, and there’s going to be a spectacular chase in that league after Liverpool beat Manchester City, before the international break, to go eight points clear. And, of course, we’ll be right across all the action here at SBOBET with the very latest updates and post match reports.
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