England vs Bosnia and Herzegovina Preview

After a season of intrigue and drama at club level, international football will resume this week with several European nations warming up for the European Championship in Germany with a couple of friendlies.

2021 Euro finalists England continue preparation for this year’s showpiece on Monday when they host Bosnia and Herzegovina at St. James’ Park. After this game, the Three Lions will play Iceland four days later. These games will no doubt be a chance for some of the new faces in Gareth Southgate’s 33-man provisional squad to impress, especially given regulars like Jude Bellingham (Champions League final participation), Harry Maguire (injury) and Luke Shaw (injury) won’t feature in this most recent fixture.

With plenty of changes expected to the starting XI, it’s possible we may see England struggle to end what’s been a poor defencive run by their lofty standards. The hosts have kept just one clean sheet across their past five matches. They are also winless in their last three games (D2, L1), which is the longest winless run for the Three Lions since a streak of six back in September 2022.

However, despite their poor form, England come into this game as heavy favourites considering that their visitors, Bosnia, are in poor form. The visitors head to Newcastle having lost each of their last four matches, conceding 2+ goals in each of those defeats.

Those losses include a 2-1 defeat to Ukraine last time out which cost them a place at this summer’s big tournament in Germany. The fallout of that loss was that their former coach was sacked and Sergej Barbarez appointed as manager in April with the hope that he can inspire some much-needed improvement.

Starting with a win here would certainly be some platform for Barbaraz to do that, although Bosnia’s poor record of one win from their last ten trips highlights further why that looks an unlikely outcome (D3, L6).