England smashed Scotland

England smashed Scotland 3-0 in the fourth round of the European qualifying campaign for the FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia. That was the 113th match between these two teams! It’s interesting that all the goals in the match were scored with headers. And that was the biggest victory for England from the beginning of the qualifying campaign.

The captain Wayne Rooney returned to the England’s starting line-up, to record his 119th appearance with the Three Lions’ shirt. He has recently been in a good shape and deserved to be included in the squad! And his performance proved Gareth Southgate has taken the right decision. To continue with, the Torino on-loan goalkeeper Joe Hart and the defenders Rose, Stones, Cahill and Walker gave Scotland forwards no chance in front of goal. Eric Dier, Jordan Henderson and Wayne Rooney pulled the strings in midfield. Raheem Sterling and Adam Lallana were the wingers and Daniel Sturridge played up front.

England was the better team during the whole match. The Three Lions had the possession of the ball in 61 % of the time! However, they managed to open the score in the 23rd minute, when Daniel Sturridge tucked the ball away with a header after a great delivery by Kyle Walker, who was involved in the attack.

Gareth Southgate’s players couldn’t score more goals before the break. But, they started to play even better after the half time. The second goal of the game was scored by Adam Lallana just 5 minutes into the second half, after a good cross by Danny Rose. 10 minutes later, Gary Cahill converted a Wayne Rooney’s cross from a corner kick into a goal, to fix the final score – 3-0!

That was maybe one of the best performances for England for 2016. With the victory, The Three Lions collected 10 points and they are topping the table. Scotland have won 4 points so far (5th place in the standings).