Lee Carsley has opened up to feelings of self-doubt over his ability to manage England but has been emboldened by the success of his opening game against Republic of Ireland on Saturday.
The interim manager saw his team win 2-0 in Dublin, the goals from Declan Rice and Jack Grealish coming during a dominant first-half performance. It got England’s Nations League Group B2 campaign off to a good start and, more significantly, did likewise with Carsley’s audition to replace Gareth Southgate on a permanent basis.
Carsley has five further matches in his interim tenure, all of them in the Nations League – the next against Finland at Wembley on Tuesday.
“You always think it’s easy to be the England manager when you’re sat in the house but there have been times where I’ve thought I’m not sure I could do it,” Carsley said.
“It’s done my confidence good [against Ireland] and the rest of the staff, as well – that, actually, we’re OK, we’ll be all right. I spoke about it at the first press conference, [being] a safe pair of hands. I feel like we’re in a good position with the players.”
The former England Under-21 manager, who won the European Championship at that level in the summer of last year and will revert to the job if he is not kept on by the seniors, was asked when he doubted himself. Carsley’s under-21 triumph was England’s first in the competition since 1984.
“You always think about it … it’s natural to have our doubts,” he said. “Going into the Euros with the 21s, with the record that we’ve got, there was a worry we could go home in 10 days. But I’ve learned with experience and dealing with setbacks, having good people around you, that it gets easier.”
England’s first-half display in Dublin was marked by their control with and without the ball. Ireland were poor but there was plenty to enjoy in how Carsley’s team, which featured Trent Alexander-Arnold stepping from right-back into midfield and Rice and Grealish as driving No 8s, found ways to get through.
Grealish’s goal was prefaced by slick one-touch football, with Rice central, and England could have had more by the interval. Harry Kane, who is in line to win his 100th cap against Finland, missed two clear chances. The second half was less eventful. “We need to show control,” Carsley said.
“The end goal is doing that against the top teams in the world in the biggest moments. They have got two years to get to that point [before the World Cup]. We have gone a good way to doing that. We’ve had four training sessions, so it’s early. The players have to take huge credit for trying a few things that we have worked on and going out there and doing it for themselves.
“We have to be careful with the term ‘freedom’,” Carsley said. “We have tried to get really effective players in really effective areas, to do what they’re good at. If you call that freedom, maybe it is. But within that there comes a real responsibility out of possession. I thought we did really well in that area. We made the pitch really small and were able to suffocate Ireland and get the ball back.”
