Hello and welcome to LIVE coverage of England v Malta at Wembley. Just a few short weeks ago this was expected to be the first home fixture of Sam Allardyce's time in charge of the national side, but after revelations surrounding his activity away from the dugout his position became untenable. Step forward, Gareth Southgate to try and spare the FA's blushes and navigate the Three Lions through the next few months. This is the first of four matches for the ex-Middlesbrough manager as the home side look to make it two wins from two in Group F of the 2018 World cup qualifying.

Rooney curves free kick into the wall. Disappointing.

Alli wins free kick 25 yards out. Chance here...

All England as you'd expect but Henderson's diagonal pass has too much pace on it for Walcott to latch onto with an angled run from the right.

Knives already being sharpened for Rooney...

Lots of people hoping Southgate does well. No-one doubting he's a gent.

Malta's record suggests they are ideal opponents for Southgate to get his tenure off to a decent start...

KICK OFF! England get Southgate's first match in charge underway through Daniel Sturridge.

Plenty of talk that Wayne Rooney will play in a deep midfield role. It's not gone down well in Twitterland! The Manchester United 'forward' was dropped by Jose Mourinho last month and the Three Lions captain will need a strong display here to avoid more negativity.

Theo Walcott will be keen to impress this evening. He was left out of the Euro 2016 squad and starts for his country for the first time since scoring in a 2-0 win in a qualifier against Estonia 12 months ago. The Arsenal man wins his 45th cap and has netted three in his last four appearances for his club. He said: "I don't want this time to stop. I have been working hard and I want to be better than the opposition. It is a completely new bunch of players but we want to put the disappointment of the Euros right - there is no reason why we cannot do better. When we have the freedom to express ourselves, that bodes well for the future."

A big evening for Daniel Sturridge?

Full team sheet from Wembley. Malta have 35-year-old star Michael Mifsud on the bench. Back in September 2007 he hit a brace as Coventry won 2-0 at champions, Man United in the Carling Cup. If he makes it onto the famous turf, it'll be his 119th appearance for his country.

Ahead of the match, right-back Kyle Walker was candid when asked about the harsh lessons learned from England's embarrassing Euro 2016 exit to Iceland. He said: "I just think we don't need to play into their game. I thought probably in the summer, that's what we did and we didn't really have a different plan. It was 'we are going to play this way', and if it didn't work, then we didn't really know what to do. But I feel for the Malta game we have different dimensions now. We have spoken about it in depth - that if something is not working, we need to go to this plan... I think the quality in the dressing room is frightening."

VIDEO: Southgate on modern management

Cracking stat!

Will Southgate lay down a marker and win his way into the job full time over the coming months? Or are the FA lining up a temperamental Italian?

It'll be a quiz question in years to come... Who was the only player to score in Sam Allardyce's 67 days in charge of England.... Answer: Adam Lallana. The Liverpool midfielder's last-gasp strike gave them a narrow 1-0 success in Slovakia in the first game of qualifying.

Some members of the press feel Marcus Rashford should have been in from the start...

Here's how the Three Lions will line up.

As expected, Theo Walcott wins his 45th cap while Daniel Sturridge also gets a start despite being far from first choice at Liverpool. Ryan Bertrand features at left back in the absence of Danny Rose.

The stand-out line from the team news is that Jesse Lingard makes his bow. The forward has made more chances per 90 minutes (3.35) in the Premier League this season than any other Man United player (via Squawka).