England vs Albania Prediction, Lineups and Odds: Kane tipped to shine at Wembley

England begin life under their new manager Thomas Tuchel with a clash against Albania at Wembley on Friday night in their first World Cup qualifier, live on ITV 1 at 7:45pm.

Read on for Tipster Wizard's match preview and predictions.

England, last year’s runners up of the European Championship, will be led by new boss Thomas Tuchel for his first fixture in charge of the Three Lions as they aim to automatically qualify for the 2026 World Cup. Only the top team from each of the 12 groups will directly qualify for the World Cup finals, with the second placed sides needing to participate in the playoffs.

In a group featuring Serbia, Andorra, Latvia and Albania, Tuchel’s men will be firm favourites to finish top and book their spot for the 2026 World Cup. They have a phenomenal record in the World Cup qualifiers; unbeaten in their last 31 games winning 23 of them. This is also the longest unbeaten run in the qualifiers of any European nation. They have also beaten their opponents Albania in all six of their head-to-head games, boasting an incredible 100% winning ratio against them.

As for the visitors Albania, they were relegated to League C of the Nations League following their loss to Ukraine in November so the morale is low in their camp. They have never won a competitive fixture against any team in the top 10 of Fifa’s World Rankings and have only scored a single goal across their six head to head meetings against their opponents England, losing 5-0 to them the last time they played in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers. Despite reaching two of the last three European Championships, they are yet to ever qualify for the World Cup finals.

There is a massive gulf in quality between these two nations, with England having beaten Albania in all six head to head fixtures historically. The last time these two sides came up against each other was in the 2022 Qatar World Cup qualifiers and England ran out comfortable 5-0 winners. I would not be surprised if we see another hammering here.

As for corners, England have won the corner count in all six of their head to head clashes against Albania. In the 2022 qualifiers, England won the corner count 4-0 and 5-1 in the two games they played against them. Considering it is expected to be one way traffic for the whole 90 minutes, it is almost certain England will create a lot more opportunities which will result in corners.

Rey Manaj averages the most fouls for Albania and committed a foul in all five of his appearances across the European Championship and the Nations League. In the recent Nations League, he committed two and five fouls in his two appearances against Georgia and Ukraine respectively and considering Albania will be without the ball for most of this game, he will likely get frustrated and commit a foul.

Finally, England have scored at least two goals in all of their six meetings vs Albania, winning 5-0, 2-0, 2-0, 3-1, 5-0 & 2-0. New manager Tuchel will be hoping to kickstart his reign in resounding fashion and given the quality of players at his disposal, it will be a massive disappointment if they fail to score at least a couple of goals against Albania.

Harry Kane has scored six headed goals for Bayern Munich already this season and is England’s biggest aerial threat in the box.

He scored a header in both his meetings against Albania in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers and considering the attacking options England have on both wings, there will be plenty of crosses coming into the box for Harry Kane to get his head on and get on the scoresheet.

At 4/1, he looks like a solid bet to score from a header against an Albania side who are vulnerable aerially.

England vs Albania Lineups

The starting lineups for England vs Albania will be displayed in the graphic below once the team news has been announced.

England vs Albania Team News

• Trent Alexander-Arnold and Cole Palmer are out for England.
• Albania have no missing players.