Can This England Squad Win the World Cup?

England announced their World Cup squad last week and there were a few surprise selections amongst it, with experienced players like Joe Hart and Jack Wilshere missing out, with Gareth Southgate preferring to back young players such as Trent Alexander-Armstrong and Ruben Loftus-Cheek. Southgate ignored the calls for the likes of Jonjo Shelvey, Ryan Sessegnon and Jamaal Lascelles to be included in the squad and England do appear to have a fairly well balanced squad heading into the tournament.

As the big day approaches, the expectation amongst fans grows and there will be more and more questions asked about whether this England team can win the trophy in Russia. Coral have priced England up as 7th favourites for the tournament at odds of 14/1, shorter than the current European Champions, Portugal, who are available at 25/1. Those odds suggest that if everything comes together for The Three Lions, then they could well spring a surprise and win the tournament.

England have been dealt a pretty easy group draw, lining up against Belgium, Panama and Tunisia and you would expect them to finish either first or second in that group. If England win their group they will face one of Colombia, Poland, Senegal or Japan and if England were to win that game, then you never know what could happen. England have had encouraging performances against the likes of Brazil, France, Germany and Holland in recent months, but they have notoriously struggled to carry over their form from qualifying and friendlies into the actual tournament.

England have plenty of quality in attack in the shape of Harry Kane, Raheem Sterling and Jamie Vardy and if Southgate can get those players firing then this side could potentially go all the way. If you were to back a top scorer for this England team, then you could do a lot worse than backing Raheem Sterling at 7/1. The Manchester City winger has enjoyed a fantastic season in front of goal, bagging 23 goals and if he can carry that form over into the tournament, then he could well outscore Harry Kane (10/11) this summer.  If you fancy Kane to do well this summer though, an interesting market to look at could be the Top Premier League Goalscorer one, where he is priced up at 12/5 to be the top scoring Premier League player, with Gabriel Jesus coming in as 2nd favourite at 5/2.

I do think that England will probably struggle to go past the Quarter Final Stage though and if you fancy them to be eliminated at that point, then you can get odds of 2/1 on them to be eliminated in the quarters. The beauty of the World Cup is that you never know though and if Southgate can get this talented side to click, then they have a chance to go all the way!