The World Cup quarter-finals continue on Saturday as Portugal face Morocco before England take on France; Jones Knows is back with predictions and thinks England and Portugal will both win their last-eight ties to set up a mouth-watering semi-final
Saturday 10 December 2022 21:19, UK
The World Cup quarter-finals continue on Saturday and our tipster Jones Knows takes to the prediction chair to dig out some juicy betting angles.
Even a cynical old goat like me is getting rather giddy over this fixture. A game of a lifetime, indeed.
I'm always reluctant to play the over goals market in major international tournament knockout football as the 90-minute goals average at this stage since 1990 is just 2.0 but I think the price for over 2.5 goals is one to attack here at Evens with Sky Bet.
France are yet to keep a clean sheet in this tournament as their usual controlled and counter-punching style has been replaced by handbrake off football.
There are huge spaces that can be exploited when France relinquish possession, something the limited Poland attack found in the first half of France's last-16 win. They couldn't cash in.
England, with confidence flowing in their attacking players, absolutely can.
And up the other end you have a French front four that have produced explosive attacking metrics in the three games they've started together. Yes their opposition hasn't been up to much but to register a per-match average of 2.6 expected goals, 20 shots and three goals a game means we're dealing with a phenomenal attacking outfit, led by Kylian Mbappe.
England shouldn't fear France though - they possess talent that can match Mbappe's superpowers.
Harry Kane, Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham are all genuine world-class talents, capable of career-defining performances and moments on this sort of stage. It's that strength across England's forward line that gives them the clear edge the longer this game goes on.
Gareth Southgate has significant armoury to use from his bench in Marcus Rashford, Jack Grealish and Raheem Sterling and as we saw when the France reserves were given a chance against Tunisia, Didier Deschamps has little quality to turn to in order to freshen things up. With this in mind, England to win in extra time at 11/1 with Sky Bet and England to win from behind at 14/1 (90 minutes only) certainly stand out at the prices.
