I’m not convinced that too many people care but the football season officially ends tonight as the World Cup Qualifiers are played across Europe.  I’ll hold my hands up, I didn’t watch the Kazakstan match at the weekend, it should have been something of a procession for starters and secondly I find watching any match on Setanta a truly painful experience.

As a beard-wearer myself I feel more than qualified to comment on that ridiculous ‘goatee’ effort from Tery Venables.  Age catches up with all of us but it seems to me that a once revered football man Venables has very little to offer in commentary and analysis these days and with that growth on his face he’s difficult to take serious. 

Steve McManaman nailed his colours to the mast during his playing days, cashing in on a lucrative pay day in Madrid and building a property portfolio with Robbie Fowler, himself having had more clubs than Ian Woosnam.  In his defence McManaman is at least articulate, although this is tempered slightly that he is Scouse. 

Chris Waddle is neither articulate or Scouse but he is barely understandable as co-commentator and takes the Terry Butcher approach by moaning the whole match. 

Perhaps my biggest complaint of Setanta (and Sky Sports started this trend) is the pre-match chat with the commentary team, peering over their shoulder to give themselves an identity to their usually faceless work.  I don’t really want to know what John Champion looks like to be honest, and this has to be the most pointless pre-match action since somebody at Sky decided to give Richard Keys and company a bar stool to sit on for Champions League nights.  For someone with back problems I wince seeing the likes of Jamie Redknapp and Ruud Gullit perched like canaries.

ITV pick up the reigns for tonight’s England clash with Andorra so there will be some familiarities for viewers.  Steve Ryder seems uncomfortable to me in any surroundings other than a golf buggy.  One of my heroes Teddy Sheringham will stutter his way through an analysis which makes Andy Townsend look like poet laureate in comparison.  As it’s an England match Clive Tyldsley should avoid bringing up ‘that night’ in Barcelona or Istanbul, but I wouldn’t bet against it.  That leaves my favourite David Pleat.  Not just because he’s a Spurs legend, but he’s the only co-commentator who addresses the nation and I look forward to his ‘Good evening everyone’.

So, onto the betting.  England are a 1/100 shot with totesport to take eight wins from eight games in the group and virtually seal their passage to next years World Cup, so from a value point of view you’re better off looking at some of the other markets.

England have actually failed to score a first half goal against tonight’s opposition in two of their three matches to date, but totesport have gone 1/66 that the home team will be winning at half time so it suggests this isn’t a trend to get too excited about.

In the goalscorer markets, Wayne Rooney heads the market at 11/4 to net first.  There might be better value elsewhere though as England are always dangerous from set pieces.  John Terry would be the obvious pick at 14/1 but his centre half partner Matthew Upson can be just as potent and at 25/1, we’d have a sniff each-way on him scoring first.

There aren’t too many other juicy matches in Europe tonight, but if you had a £25 fivefold accumulator with totesport on England, Holland (home to Norway), Russia (away to Finalnd), Ukraine (home to Kazakhstan) and Sweden (home to Malta) it would pay £64.86.

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