England face a tricky encounter against Hungary at Wembley Stadium as Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions seek to move closer towards automatic qualification as Group I leaders.
With Albania facing Poland elsewhere, England can extend their lead at the top of Group I as high as six points if the former two teams draw in Tirana.
Hungary meanwhile will stay fourth with a win but defeat here coupled with a win for Albania or Poland would end the Magyars’ World Cup Qualification dreams.
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Harry Kane could lead a host of changes for England as Gareth Southgate prepares to recall his captain for this tricky encounter, following a mass squad rotation in Saturday’s win over Andorra.
Jordan Pickford, Fikayo Tomori and Declan Rice could feature amongst other changes across the starting eleven, as John Stones and Phil Foden look the most likeliest to remain their starting places in the team.
Hungary have no fresh injury concerns to report after Saturday’s loss to Albania as Attila Fiola and Mark Tamas miss out through injury.
Stat Attack
- England are unbeaten in three World Cup Qualifiers against Hungary (W3).
- Hungary lost their only previous away World Cup Qualifier to England 1-0 in November 1981 (L1).
- Five of England’s 11 goals at home in this Qualifying campaign have been scored by strikers with Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Harry Kane scoring twice and Ollie Watkins doing so once.
- Two of Hungary’s last three matches have been lost by 1-0 results – albeit both defeats coming against Albania.
- Marco Rossi’s Magyars have won just one of their last eight matches in all competitions (W1, D3, L4).
Prediction
Having cruised to a routine win in Andorra on Saturday with a second-string team despite struggling to break their opposition down for much of the first half, it will be all change for England but hopefully they will be much sharper in their movement on the ball in this fixture than they were in Budapest last month.
Hungary though come into this match in poor form but are still a difficult team to break down and beat, especially in terms of pressing because these Magyars boast a tough defence which could certainly cause issues if England aren’t at their clinical best even with likes of Kane and Rice starting.
I however do feel like this is England’s match to lose because if they can quickly break Hungary down and get the first goal, this should be another comfortable win.
Prediction: England 2-0 Hungary
Result: England 1-1 Hungary