With two victories out of two in the Uefa Nations League to enhance his credentials to replace Gareth Southgate permanently, Carsley could have been forgiven for playing it safe.
Rather than taking a risk and walking the thin line between bravery and recklessness, Carsley chose to go all out with an aggressive strategy that, on paper, seemed exciting. Maybe it ought to have remained right there. It appeared to be a poorly thought out, impromptu, managerial move from the first seconds of a devastating 2-1 defeat to Greece.
In response to the injury to captain Harry Kane, Carsley decided not to use a designated striker when he had the option of using Dominic Solanke or Ollie Watkins. Instead, he stacked his attacking lineup with Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, Anthony Gordon, and Bukayo Saka.
Carsley’s experimenting resulted in an ugly jumble, a tactically disorganized and desperate defensive situation where Greece had five possessions of the ball in England’s net but had three of those possessions called out for offside. Vangelis Pavlidis counted two, which doomed them to defeat.
Only two efforts on goal were managed by England’s massively forward-loaded squad, one by Bellingham in the third minute and his equalizer three minutes from the end. Even then, Carsley’s team.
