England, Poland score big wins

LONDON: Jack Grealish came off the bench to score his first goal for England and complete a 5-0 rout of Andorra, on Saturday, which edged his side a step closer to sealing their place in next year's World Cup finals.

Manchester City's Grealish, who came on for his 16th cap in the 73rd minute, produced a trademark dribble and finish to round off a satisfactory night for England manager Gareth Southgate who rested most of his big guns.

Ben Chilwell began the scoring in Andorra's tiny national stadium, also with his first England goal, and Bukayo Saka made it 2-0 shortly before the interval.

AS Roma's Tammy Abraham, given a first start for four years, made it 3-0 with a tap-in and James Ward-Prowse then had a 79th-minute penalty saved before converting the rebound.

But the best was saved for last as Grealish dribbled around a tiring Andorra defence before slotting in a low shot.

In another mismatch, similar to England's 4-0 win at Wembley last month, Andorra offered hard graft and defended robustly but were no match for Southgate's much-changed side who eased to their sixth win from seven matches in the group.

England now have 19 points, four more than Albania, who won in Hungary, and five more than Poland. Two wins from their last three games, at home to Hungary and Albania and away to San Marino, will book their place in Qatar.

Poland thrashed San Marino 5-0 in their Group I World Cup qualifier on Saturday as Paulo Sousa's side remain one point behind second-placed Albania, who defeated Hungary in Budapest.

Sousa started the game with just two players from the starting line-up against England in September, resting players such as Piotr Zielinski, Kamil Glik and Grzegorz Krychowiak ahead of Tuesday's crunch match against Albania.

Poland's Karol Swiderski put the hosts ahead after ten minutes with a close-range header, followed by an own goal by San Marino ten minutes later, after defender Christian Brolli deflected a pass from Kacper Kozlowski.

The hosts increased their lead shortly after halftime when defender Tomasz Kedziora struck the ball into the roof of the net. Striker Adam Buksa scored in the 84th minute having grabbed a hat-trick against San Marino in September.

Krzysztof Piatek tapped the ball into the net in stoppage time in his first match since recovering from the injury that prevented him from playing at Euro 2020.

Poland travel to Albania on Tuesday in an attempt to reclaim second spot in the group.

Serbia boosted their hopes of reaching the World Cup after a moment of individual skill from striker Dusan Vlahovic gave them a barely deserved 1-0 win at Luxembourg in a turgid Group A qualifier.

The result lifted Serbia to the top of the group on 14 points from six games, one more than Portugal who have a game in hand. Luxembourg stayed third on six points from five games.

Armando Broja scored 10 minutes from time to hand Albania an upset 1-0 away victory over Hungary in Budapest and keep up their hopes of an unlikely World Cup qualification.

The English-born Broja, who is on loan at Southampton from Chelsea, scored for a second successive Group I game against Hungary after also netting a dramatic late winner in last month's 1-0 home success in Elbasan. Agencies

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