Croatia v England

With a Croatia 3-0 win on Saturday, and having beat England twice in the last qualifying campaign, the Croatia team will be full of confidence. England haven't looked the best in recent games and have managed a nervy 2-0 against Andorra thanks to a Joe Cole double against a team 186th in the world rankings. Croatia will be the favorites going into this game and will have home advantage.

This is a match not to bet to much money on because it can't be decided, Croatia are going to be strong at home and at Euro 2008 they have proved to be difficult to beat. They were undefeated in the tournament were only put out by Turkey on penalties in the Quarter Finals. Beating Austria, Germany and Poland on the way. They also only conceded two goals in four matches in the tournament. Croatia are ranked 5th in the world and England are 10 places behind them in 15th.

England will have a few players missing, Steven Gerrard being the most important player to be ruled out. Rio Ferdinand will be called up to the squad but may not start (will be updated soon). Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves and Micheal Owen also will not appear in the fixture.

England will be desperate to make up for their two defeats last season to Croatia and will have more experience playing under Fabio Capello but during the last match away to Andorra, Capello was unhappy at Wayne Rooney and Joe Cole for not listening to his tactics during the game. Capello said he had asked both Rooney and Cole to support Heskey up front, but felt that once they had gone 2-0 the pair were dropping too deep into midfield

Croatia will have a strong team but I think England will get the business done and will leave with a win. By reading the statistics my brain is telling me that Croatia should win the game but my gut feeling is saying England.

So am going to brave and say an England win. Ladbrokes have it at 11/5

Ladbrokes prices

Croatia Win - 5/4
Draw- 2/1
England Win - 11/5

I also think that Mladen Petric 7/1 for first goal scorer would be a good bet.