Ally McCoist: There’s a real freshness about England

The European Championships are almost upon us, and though Scotland won’t be taking part in France, Tartan Army legend Ally McCoist has been lending us his thoughts on how the tournament might play out.

We caught up the Ladbrokes ambassador to get his views on how well the auld enemy England will fare across the Channel.

Speaking exclusively to Ladbrokes News at our #ForTheFans event this week, the Scotland legend revealed his hopes for Harry Kane and offered us a tip on one particular debutant to make their mark.

With 61 caps for the Tartan Army, including appearing at Euro ’96, McCoist knows a thing or two about international football.

England

Well, I’ve got to say I was unbelievably impressed with England’s performance against Germany. I know it was only a friendly but I thought they were terrific.

I just think there’s a real freshness, particularly middle to front, about England. There’s guys that are playing with a real freedom and enthusiasm.

I would still be a little bit concerned about them at the back, particularly in the middle against top class forwards, but I honestly think and hope, England do very, very well.

Can Harry Kane turn England into winners?

I think he can, I really do. He’s burst onto the scene. He’s scoring some fantastic goals but his all-round play is excellent as well. People don’t really talk about that so much.

They talk about his goals and rightly so but for a younger player, his understanding and his game-knowledge is excellent and you’ve also got some real talent upfront with Jamie Vardy and Daniel Sturridge and guys like that.

So I think England will do very well and I look forward to seeing Harry Kane perform and I think he will. Roy will know his own team certainly better than I would, but I think Harry Kane would be one of his first picks.

Marcus Rashford

Brilliant, what a story huh? What a story for every young kid in the country to look at. He broke into the Manchester United team just a few months ago and now he’s absolutely living the dream.

What is he, 18? He’ll be one of the youngest players ever to be at the Euros, it’s a wonderful story.

And coming on the back of the dream that was Leicester City last year, this is just another piece of magic that we’re really enjoying, it’s wonderful.

Dark Horse

Certainly not to win it, not at all, but I would expect a good level of performance from Iceland believe it or not.

They’ve got some good players, they’re a really solid team, Lagerback the coach, as we know from Sweden, he prefers a strong 4-4-2, he doesn’t really shift anything, there’s no rocket science about his teams and his approach.

A lot of those players have played together for a long time, they’ve come through the U21s.

They were unlucky to not to qualify for the last World Cup. I think it was Croatia that beat them in the play-off.

As I said, I don’t think they’ll win it by any stretch of the imagination but I’m looking forward to seeing some good performances, and some good individual performances from Iceland in their first major tournament.

Banker

I think it’s got to be Thomas Muller to finish top scorer.

I’d like to see Harry Kane get a few, but I think I’ll be having a few quid on Muller to be top scorer.

I look at the Italian side and they don’t have that, they have Graziano Pelle but they don’t win games by a lot of goals. You can see Germany scoring goals.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.