U21s take on San Marino at sold-out Greenhous Meadow
Graham Turner is looking forward to watching England's under-21 stars turn on the style at a packed Greenhous Meadow tonight.
The last of the available tickets were snapped up yesterday afternoon with a sell out crowd of more than 9,000 flocking to the Meadow for the 6pm kick off against San Marino, the latest UEFA European U21 Championship qualifier for Gareth Southgate's side.
Southgate was very complimentary about the Greenhous Meadow facilities when he and his squad visited the stadium earlier this morning.
"It's fantastic to have this sort of interest in a game here," said the Town manager. "It's testimony to the interest in football in the area and, in particular, the opportunity to see some of England's bright stars of the future."
Nothing, of course, can ever be taken for granted in football but GT expects the locals to be treated to a few England goals this evening.
"I would expect it to be a comfortable night for England," he added. "I think San Marino's record is something like played 86 and they've lost 85.
"The only defeat they've ever inflicted on anybody was against Wales under-21s in which Tom Bradshaw was unfortunately involved so I'll remind him of that from time to time!
"It will be nice to see the England stars and I would expect plenty of goals from them."
England will be without suspended West Brom striker Saido Berahino, who scored twice in Thursday's 3-0 win over Finland at MK Dons.
Southgate has revealed he could make changes to the team which started against Finland with the likes of Manchester United youngster Jesse Lingard, Blackpool's Tom Ince and Will Hughes of Derby County all pushing for starts.
Southgate said: "Of course, we have Saido suspended, so I probably won’t make many more changes than that but it’s the balance of giving people who have earned a right to play but also giving the game the respect it deserves.
“This is a tough team to get in and when you’ve got the shirt, you want to keep it.
“On the bench the other night, there were four or five players who have just as much right to come and say they deserve a place with the way they’ve played or the way they’ve trained - so it’s a real challenge to pick a team.”
England beat San Marino 4-0 in Serravalle last month.