A modest Lee Carsley played down compliments about his tactics and style of play after opening his reign as England’s interim head coach with a dominant 2-0 win over the Republic of Ireland in Dublin on Saturday night.
Carsley, who is looking to land the job on a permanent basis after taking over from Gareth Southgate, preferred to direct the praise towards his players for beginning their Nations League campaign with a fine performance at the Aviva Stadium. The 50-year-old enjoyed victory in his first game thanks to early goals from Declan Rice and Jack Grealish, but he steered clear of accepting that England’s fluidity in possession was evidence of “Carsball” clicking into gear.
“It’s definitely not,” Carsley said. “It’s definitely not my style. It’s the players that are capable of receiving the ball in tight areas and playing through. I’m just lucky I’m coaching them. I don’t see this as my style. They should take all the credit for the way they’ve been. You could see they were trying to do the right things and I think we can be really pleased.”
Carsley will look for further progress when England host Finland in their second game in Group B2 on Tuesday. “I thought it was good in parts,” he said. “You’ve seen some of the things we’ve tried to do. The lads have to take all of the credit. I think we’ve showed we’ve got some real talent and we can be really pleased with the clean sheet as well.”
One of the positives for Carsley was seeing Grealish, who was devastated to be left out of Southgate’s squad for Euro 2024, shining as a No 10 after returning to the international stage.
“I need to start playing regularly, scoring goals, and that’s what I did today,” Grealish said. “I’m still not 100% fit but I’m getting there, so from a personal point of view I’m happy. There’s no better feeling than playing for England, everyone will say the same thing, especially in games like this when you know the whole nation is going to be watching.
“Over the summer, it was one of the worst summers of my life because you can’t not see everything that is happening in front of you. It was difficult but it’s given me something to bounce back from.”
Carsley could take satisfaction from Trent Alexander-Arnold flourishing at right-back. The 25-year-old was given the freedom to step into midfield and he played a key role in Rice’s opener. “If you see Trent play this season, it was very similar to the way we asked him to play,” Carsley said.
“When we built, he often went central with Kobbie [Mainoo] and Dec went a little bit higher or wider. What we’ve noticed within the pathway of players is that full-backs are almost like midfield players. They’ve got all the attributes of midfielders and Trent definitely falls into that. I thought he was very good today. He was a positive performance.”
Rice was pleased with the way that England began a new era. “We’re in the league below where we want to be, so we know how important it is to win this group,” the midfielder said. “To score alongside Jack, it was a really nice feeling.
“It has been really refreshing this week. Lee has been amazing to work with, his meetings have been top and training has been really good. It’s been a fresh start, a change and to win for him today and for ourselves to get off to a winning start was the main thing.”
