The 'best team' Anthony Gordon's played in, a new role for Cole Palmer and complex tactics: What it's REALLY like working for the cap-wearing Irishman who is England's interim manager
- Gareth Southgate announced he was standing down as England boss in July
Although he’s been coaching in the shadows, away from the glare and public scrutiny, the bright lights are not a completely unfamiliar concept to Lee Carsley.
Nothing that crops up when he steps out to take charge of England, on an interim basis through the autumn, can be any trickier than one morning in Saipan. The bulbs flashed that bit quicker then.
As luck would have it, Carsley’s turn to do the world’s media came hours after Roy Keane’s meltdown with Mick McCarthy and the turmoil that provoked inside the Republic of Ireland camp ahead of the World Cup in 2002.
Carsley was thrust into the spotlight, sat with Jason McAteer, without any preparation. He laughs about it now, that the two of them were just told to crack on as Ireland’s world appeared to be crumbling around them. As half-hours go, it wasn’t particularly comfortable.
Maybe the episode played a subconscious part in senior coaching never really appealing to a central midfielder whose 17-year career saw him peak at Everton next to Thomas Gravesen in that David Moyes team that finished fourth.
Lee Carsley is a contender to replace Gareth Southgate as the manager of the England team and has been appointed on an interim basis
Carsley is a former caretaker manager of Coventry City and went on to win the U21 Euros with England in 2023
Carsley is a genuine and deserved candidate competing against the likes of Newcastle boss Eddie Howe
He’s always seen himself as a development coach and really, aside from the additional hoopla around the England team, this role – for however long it lasts – is no different. He’s not tasked with developing players per se but developing a style of play that has been the hallmark of a wildly successful three years as the Under-21 manager.
The opportunity to do that is right up his street and, despite an ever-growing reputation, Carsley is still the man who places the cones out at the start of his training sessions. He loves the routine of setting up, mapping out the next hour or so, and is a hands-on coach who will never truly be able to relinquish that side of his management. He’ll go by Cars or Lee when the squad arrive for September’s Nations League meet with Ireland. No gaffer, no boss.
And there is pedigree. In delivering the first piece of men’s silverware for 39 years, without conceding a goal throughout the European Championship, he introduced an extravagant expanse to an England team rarely – perhaps never – seen before. With Angel Gomes and Curtis Jones, operating with two progressive midfielders in the No 6 positions – a method that now looks alien to the seniors at this summer’s tournament. England barely passed a ball backwards at the Under-21 edition.
But he has undoubtedly come to this, an audition for the most coveted position in the land, the long way. When given a leg up at Coventry City, taking over as caretaker in 2012 and 2013, Carsley did wonder if he could bluff his way to the top yet knew none of that was bound to last.
Coventry were in League One and, having started well in temporary charge, he has told Mail Sport that a half-time team talk at home against Swindon Town proved to him that, back then, he was nowhere near ready.
His team were leading by a goal at the time, albeit massively against the run of play. Carsley darted into the manager’s office at the then Ricoh Arena, stood motionless listening to his players arguing with each other next door. And he had no clue how to counter a formation Swindon had foxed him with. He didn’t even know the shape they were playing.
‘I knew myself, in that moment, I was miles off it,’ he reflected. ‘I’m thinking, “my God, I can’t work it out”. You go in… “you need to get tighter, work harder, play with more passion”.
‘It would only have taken one of them, “well, what are they doing?” and I would’ve been snookered. I couldn’t have gone up to the tactics board and showed them. I had an awareness that if I’m not careful, I’ll get elevated beyond my capability and the game will spit me out.’
Anthony Gordon (right) was full of praise for Carsley and previously described the set up as 'the best footballing team I've played in'
Levi Colwill is another of Carsley's charges to make the step up to the senior side in recent years
Coventry eventually lost 2-1 and the introspection of that story is partly why Carsley is at this particular juncture at this particular moment. Eleven years on, a genuine and deserved candidate to succeed Southgate as leader of his country. And the man in the driving seat, truth be told, working under an FA who have shown a penchant for promoting from within.
Swindon made him think of how best to attack coaching and that meant properly learning the craft, moulding players at Brentford, Manchester City, Birmingham City and then England in different guises. He’s taken bits from everywhere, describing nipping into Pep Guardiola’s sessions as the equivalent of peaking behind the curtain at the end of the Wizard of Oz. He saw there were no special tricks, just simple instructions to the point.
And now he stands as one of the preeminent development coaches in the United Kingdom, with FA technical director John McDermott a huge admirer. Such an admirer, that they pushed harder than you might image to keep hold of him after the Euros triumph.
Winning it is one thing but the way that was done over the course of three weeks in Georgia was something entirely different. This looked like a Carsley team, a style England want to identify with, vindicating the millions spent on St George’s Park.
The game plans were front foot, brave on the ball, stoic at the back. There was the intuitive Gomes further back but also Anthony Gordon as a false nine. At one point, Cole Palmer operated in deep central midfield. Levi Colwill said he was made to feel like an attacker in possession.
Southgate stepped away from his role as England manager after the Three Lions' Euro 2024 defeat by Spain
There was an identity, breaking lines through midfield, a rotation in positioning. Tactically complex, evidence that even with limited coaching time English players can adapt to the sort of football deployed at the very highest level. If Carsley can do it with teenagers, he can do it with seasoned professionals.
‘This might be the best footballing team I’ve played in, in terms of how we play and the combination play around the box,’ said Gordon, the tournament’s top scorer. ‘It’s really at an elite level. For me, that’s down to Lee.’
And each answer from all of them, to whatever point was being made, was the same: it was because of Carsley, the man who took every session in a trusty cap to protect him from the sun.
The name of Lee Carsley is unlikely to stir the soul of a public who failed to shake suspicions of Southgate’s lack of elite experience.
He was an FA man and so is Carsley after seven years with them. Yet so too is Didier Deschamps, who hasn’t done badly in France. Lionel Scaloni had a go with Argentina’s Under 20s before then lifting the World Cup and Copa America. Carsley’s journey is not too dissimilar to Spain’s Luis de la Fuente either and while there isn’t a one size fits all to what makes a winning coach in international football, something must be said of somebody who has pre-existing positive relationships with the burgeoning talents. And somebody whose football drags you along with him.
