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England’s World Cup 2018 campaign starts here, when Nigeria, clad in their dazzling new kit which sold out within minutes of its release on Friday, arrive at Wembley.
Gareth Southgate has insisted the team he names will not necessarily be the one that starts the World Cup against Tunisia on 18th June but there are places still up for grabs.
Jordan Pickford starts between the sticks with Jesse Lingard part of an attacking midfield that also includes Raheem Sterling after a controversial and headline-grabbing week.
We will have all the action right here:
Live Updates
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What time is kick-off?
The game will kick off at Wembley at 5.15pm BST.
Where can I watch it?
The game will be shown on ITV, with coverage starting at 5.00pm BST.
Odds?
England: 2/5
Nigeria: 19/2
Odds: 62/17
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Final score: England 2 Nigeria 1
In the recent era they have barely left a smudge on the consciousness of World Cup finals, but if the penultimate friendly before Russia 2018 told us one thing it's that Gareth Southgate is at least an England manager who is prepared to attack the greatest tournament in sport.
This was a first-half performance of ambition that took England into a two-goal half-time lead and saw them stretched rather more after the break once Nigeria had got the measure of a 3-5-2 Southgate formation that set the tempo. Southgate will hope it is the England of the first half he sees in Russia, pressing high, moving the ball quickly and creating chances, but history tells us that one never knows what might happen.
In that first half, Jesse Lingard and Dele Alli were released from midfield, with only Eric Dier required to hold. There was width, especially in a fine performance from Tottenham Hotspur’s Kieran Trippier on the right and a striking partnership between Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling. The nagging fear was that it took very little to undo that confident start, with Nigeria’s German coach Gernot Rohr later disclosing that he simply switched at half-time to mirror England’s system.
Before then Gary Cahill, and later Kane, had plundered the goals over a first half in which the Super Eagles conspicuously failed to soar. Following soon after four half-time substitutions, Alex Iwobi’s early second-half goal gave Nigeria the confidence to attack and England were never the same again. Their coach Rohr blamed the distractions of long flights, a presidential reception in Abuja, “bad food” and a rain storm that prevented them training at Wembley for the slow start.
For Sterling it was an inauspicious end to the week, two first-half chances missed and then a booking for a bad dive in the second half. Southgate conceded afterwards that he felt he was left with no option but to shelve any punishment for the player’s failure to make his own extended deadline for the squad meet on the Tuesday of last week once the storm had broken over his assault rifle tattoo. So instead of being dropped for his lateness, Sterling was in the team, even though the player himself later said to ITV he could not have complained about being left out.
