Lee Carsley has revealed he is yet to speak to Thomas Tuchel about the England squad he will hand over to him in the new year.
Carsley is preparing for his final camp as the interim head coach, taking in the Nations League ties against Greece in Athens next Thursday and the Republic of Ireland at Wembley three days after, and his headline selections were the first call-ups for the left-back Lewis Hall and the centre-half Taylor Harwood-Bellis.
Carsley named Jack Grealish in his 26-man party despite the Manchester City winger having missed his club’s past five matches with a groin problem. He recalled the goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale at the expense of Nick Pope and found room for Curtis Jones, who had been a late addition to the October squad. John Stones and Kobbie Mainoo missed out because of injury and there was no recall for Harry Maguire, who is also injured.
Tuchel, who was confirmed in mid-October as the permanent successor to Gareth Southgate, will start work on 1 January, having signed a contract to take him up to the 2026 World Cup finals. He has not disagreed with the notion that it will be win or bust for him, but he appears content to bide his time on the outside before he attacks the challenge.
Tuchel, out of work since leaving Bayern Munich at the end of last season, has not sought to influence Carsley’s selection and communication between the pair has gone no further than a few pleasantries. Carsley will return to his old job as the England Under-21s head coach, where he will hope to form a bond with Tuchel. Ashley Cole, Carsley’s assistant coach, will go back with him to the under-21s.
Carsley was asked to clarify whether he had spoken to Tuchel. “No,” he replied. “I think with the press conference [for Tuchel’s unveiling], it was quite clear in terms of the starting date. It was more of a text message to him which was: ‘Congratulations.’ And he said: ‘Good luck for the window and look forward to meeting up.’
“He is fully respectful that I am in charge at the moment. That is the priority. I do not feel hard done by or shunned. If anything I look forward to hopefully create a situation where we can hand over a healthy squad of players to the new coach.”
Carsley made plain that he had not picked his squad with Tuchel in mind. “No. I am quite selfish in that respect,” he said. “I picked the squad which I think can beat Greece and the Republic of Ireland.”
Grealish remains in, although Carsley will return him to City if the forward is not sufficiently far along in his rehabilitation. He said Grealish had “been training at City for the last couple of days”, although it was unclear whether he would come back for them at Brighton on Saturday.
It is unusual for an England manager to call up a player who has missed a run of club games and the City manager, Pep Guardiola, has previously suggested Grealish would be out until after the international break. Perhaps he meant simply for City.
Grealish posted a cryptic comment to his Instagram story last week. “You never know what people are going through and sometimes the people with the biggest smiles are struggling the most, so be kind,” he wrote.
Carsley said he hoped to assess Grealish in camp at the start of next week and added that he had other injury doubts. Declan Rice has broken a toe but, after missing Arsenal’s Champions League defeat at Inter on Wednesday, he intends to play through the pain at Chelsea on Sunday. Cole Palmer has missed training sessions for Chelsea since taking a blow to the knee from Manchester United’s Lisandro Martínez last weekend.
“I don’t think this is the time of year to be gambling or taking chances with players,” Carsley said. “If there’s a risk that they’re not fit, we won’t take that chance.”
Carsley is under no illusions about the need for two victories, especially after the Wembley loss to Greece in October. If England cannot overhaul Greece to top the group and win promotion back to the Nations League A division, they would face a playoff in March, which would put back the start of their World Cup qualifying campaign.
“The priority has got to be to win the group,” Carsley said. “They are both strong opponents so the importance is our strongest XI in the two games.”
