Home ›› 21 Nov 2022 ›› Sport
England will start yet another campaign of trying to bring the World Cup ‘home’ against Iran, while the Asian country will look to find a place near the top in a difficult group.
The English are plagued with injuries as they had to leave Reece James and Ben Chilwell with injuries, and brought a half-fit Kyle Walker in hopes that he would recover.
Despite all that, they have a strong squad and Gareth Southgate is likely to field a strong XI against Iran, which will see Jordan Pickford at goal, with Harry Maguire, John Stones, and Eric Dier as the centre-backs in his three-man defence. Kieran Trippier and Luke Shaw are the likely full-backs, with Declan Rice and Jude Bellingham in the midfield. The front trio will be led by their skipper Harry Kane, with Bukayo Saka and Raheem Sterling playing on the wings.
For Iran, their biggest hopes will be on Porto’s Mehdi Taremi and Bayer Leverkusen’s Sardar Azmoun. They topped their group in the qualifiers, edging South Korea and UAE to a direct qualification, and have won six out of their last 10 matches.
And Carlos Queiroz’s team will be hoping to make use of England’s leaky defence, which has conceded 10 goals in their last six matches.
England also finished last in their UEFA Nations League group, which has led to questions regarding their favourites status, but defender Dier cleared all that away, tagging those accusations as ‘crazy talk’.
“We’ve got to remember what England were doing before. He’s taken England to the semi-finals of the World Cup and the final of the Euros. We are talking about small margins that changed those results,” he said.
