England vs Nigeria international friendly – England’s 23-man World Cup 2018 squad

24/05/2018 | Categories: Football betting | Published by: Andy Nelson

Updated: 26th June 2022

Gareth Southgate has chosen a 23-man England World Cup 2018 Squad that will play Nigeria in an International friendly on June 2nd at the Wembley stadium before leaving for Russia World Cup 2018. The English will be involved, though, in another friendly with Costa Rica on June 7th at the Leeds United's ground. The composition of the England squad for the England vs Nigeria game is as follows.

Goalkeepers:

Jack Butland (Stoke City), Jordan Pickford (Everton), Nick Pope (Burnley)

Defenders

Phil Jones (Manchester Utd), Gary Cahill (Chelsea), Kyle Walker (Man City), Kieran Trippier (Tottenham Hotspur), Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool), Danny Rose (Tottenham Hotspur), Ashley Young (Manchester Utd), John Stones (Manchester City), Harry Maguire (Leicester City)

Mid-fielders

John Dier (Tottenham Hotspur), Jordan Henderson (Liverpool), Fabian Delph (Manchester City), Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Chelsea), Jesse Lingard (Manchester Utd), Dele Alli (Tottenham Hotspur)

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Forwards

Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur), Marcus Rashford (Manchester Utd), Jamie Vardy (Leicester City), Raheem Sterling (Manchester City), Danny Welbeck (Arsenal)

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain Injured

England will sorely miss the services of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on the right flank in the England vs Nigeria game. The speedy 24-year old sustained a severe knee-injury during Liverpool's Champions League semi-final clash against Roma. The 31-year old Joe Hart, the current West Ham goalkeeper with 75 international caps for England has been overlooked. The 19-year Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold considered to be one of the most exciting prospects around has been included in the squad and is the only uncapped player.

The idea of a match against an African side was mooted by the Football Association as a sort of warm-up for England's World Cup opener against Tunisia on June 18 at Volgograd.

Nigeria's Premier League Players

Nigeria has in its ranks quite a few players who feature in the Premier League, viz. Arsenal’s Alex Iwobi, Wilfred Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho from Leicester City, Chelsea star Victor Moses and a former Blues member John Obi Mikel who currently plays for Chinese side Tianjin Teda and Francis Uzoho, the goalkeeper of Spanish club Deportivo La Coruna.

For the Super Eagles, the friendly against a strong side like England will be good match practice as they are in a difficult World Cup group packed with teams like Argentina, Iceland and Croatia.

England vs Nigeria Predictions

As for the England vs Nigeria Wembley clash, the Nigerians who are three-time African champions are expected to give the hosts a really tough fight and one can expect scores like 1-0 in favor of England or even a 0-0 in a potentially hard-fought encounter.

England vs Nigeria 1-0

England vs Nigeria 0-0

Gareth Southgate could adopt a 3-5-2 formation where his starting XI could look like this:

Pickford (goal); Walker, Stones, Maguire; Trippier, Dier, Henderson, Alli, Young; Kane, Sterling