LEE CARSLEY on what being England supervisor is actually like: In first interview since he left the job, he hits again at armchair critics and anthem ‘overreaction’, reveals what we should enhance to win a World Cup and what he advised Thomas Tuchel

We’ve interrupted Lee Carsley’s sacred afternoon.

Monday, spent in front of wide screens with wide angles at St George’s Park reviewing the weekend performances of a half-century of players vying for a place with holders England at this summer’s Under 21 European Championship.

Done thoroughly, it takes about 50 minutes to go through the touches and off-the-ball actions of one player with the FA’s bespoke software, Helix.

To log them, to annotate, to cross-reference from previous games, to build a picture of whether they can impact England’s Under 21s and, by extension, the seniors that Carsley has now left behind.

These are the sessions when he decides Anthony Gordon plays as a false nine, Angel Gomes a defensive midfielder, Cole Palmer deeper than ever before, James Garner a right back.

They’re quite important, the cornerstone of the week, and he’s been dragged away to have this chat. It’s fair to say he’d rather be studying long recovery runs than talking about them.

‘At home I’ve got the study, watch about 11 games a week in there with the tactics board, names of all the squad up on it,’ he says. ‘Today, the day you’ve come in here, is when I’ll watch all the touches of anyone close to the team.’

He’s quite nice about it, Carsley the manager. Just drops it in, mentions in passing. Carsley the midfielder might have piled through you and turned around whistling.

But there is an overarching point here that maybe he is making or maybe he isn’t: this gig is no doss. It’s hours and hours, week on week. Ashley Cole, Tim Dittmer and James Ryder, the backroom team, take their fair share of clips too.

‘It’s a big…’ Carsley trails off. He often leaves you to fill in the blanks, perhaps to make sure that these are two-way conversations.

Operation, presumably, marks the end of that sentence. ‘It’s taken a bit of time to get used to it,’ he describes the transition back to his old job as Under 21s boss. ‘I don’t see it as a slight on myself. It’s not a demotion, a comedown – far from it. I’m really privileged to have the job I’ve got. Lucky to have it. Well, probably not luck but you know what I mean.’

It’s definitely not luck though, is it? With more authority, he accepts that no, it isn’t. The first manager since Dave Sexton in 1984 to deliver an Under 21 European title for England. And the man who made England fun again in a six-game spell as interim manager of the senior team that, but for a bewildering night against Greece, would have touched perfection. Not just because of the results leading to Nations League promotion, either.

Eight debuts – which could have been more had Jacob Ramsey and Harvey Elliott been more fortunate – to help move the dynamics of the squad without doubt eases new manager Thomas Tuchel’s ability to start afresh.

No surprises for any of those youngsters were they to earn call-ups between now and next year’s World Cup. Equally, no major dramas were Tuchel to drop any of the more nostalgic picks over time. Carsley did the heavy lifting there, although answers an entirely different question when that is put to him. He doesn’t so much deflect, more dodge completely.

‘It was a great experience and something I’m proud of,’ says the 51-year-old. ‘You definitely doubt whether you could do it or not and the opportunity, the trust shown in me, isn’t something I underestimated.

‘It’s so easy to manage England when you’re sat in the house. The main thing for me was to watch an exciting team. I’m not saying it wasn’t in the past but you’ve seen enough of the Under 21s, what we try to do, and it was important we carried that over. 

‘It’s something I really believe in. If you can out-score the opposition… you want to see goals, attacking football, energy and high tempo. The evidence suggests that is what we did. Barring Greece, it was a positive experience.’

That 2-1 defeat at Wembley in October was the only blot on an otherwise perfect record. Palmer, Gordon, Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka all in the same team, with Declan Rice holding them together. Would he do it again? ‘One hundred per cent, definitely,’ he insists. ‘Ultimately I have to take responsibility, I picked the players to play that way. I believed the players could do it and still do.’

His conviction is unwavering and there are certainly at least two ways of getting all of those in. The most obvious is to show Bellingham or Foden, probably the former, what Fabian Ruiz did for Spain at Euro 2024 and what Adrien Rabiot did for France at the World Cup two years earlier. Bellingham’s shown he can play deeper without fuss for Real Madrid.

Carsley has already proven this sort of thing is possible, granted at age-group level but still with elite players. The country craves excitement, more front-foot daring, yet castigate invention at the first sign of trouble. There is also a wider aspect to the criticism of that defeat by Greece on an emotional night when they mourned George Baldock’s passing. 

The immediate response to blame the setup was to ignore possible individual under-performance and there is no way of knowing what the major contributing factor was until it’s attempted again.

Perception is something Carsley ponders deeply. He does wonder about the media side of the role. More importantly, he considers the opinions about homegrown managers. Approaching the interim job, and this return to the Under 21s, is to subconsciously fly the flag for them.

‘From a British coaching perspective, it’s important that we are creative and seen to be playing with risk,’ he says. ‘It’s so easy to be defensive and solid but that’s not the way I coach.

‘I played like that forever. I wouldn’t want to watch a team with me in it. I’m not trying to talk a good game here, I truly believe it. I’d rather not manage than go any other way.’

Carsley is promising that the Under 21s, who face France and Portugal in the last camp of pre-Euros friendlies this month, will be experimenting ahead of the tournament. Of course they will.

It was the first week of January when Carsley came together with Tuchel, down the corridor from where we are now, on the second floor in the far corner of St George’s Park, next to the senior training pitches.

They met for about an hour, Carsley explaining his thinking behind the composition of lopsided squads and fielding questions from the German on players and more mundane logistical matters.

Much had been made of Carsley delivering his findings to Tuchel, a coach brought in to edge England over the line at a major tournament and hopefully pave the way for those following him into that chair.

‘Did I say it was a dossier? I don’t think I did,’ Carsley smirks. ‘Not a word I often use to be fair. I might have said handover but then it turned into a secret dossier, which sounds a lot better.

‘It was pretty straightforward. It wasn’t going to be a case of me doing a presentation on the England team, he’s obviously very knowledgeable. No laser pens. It was handing over the team, going through some (funky) positions some can possibly play. They’ve settled in well – we’ve got a good relationship, open lines of communication.

‘There is a lot of quality. A lot. I knew we had good players but the level is so high. I really believe they can go on and win now, do something special. And it’s definitely helped me that I’ve been behind the curtain and seen what we could do with.

‘It’d be fair to say we have two positions where we’re light: a No 9 and left backs. What you’re finding is a lot of our full backs start as wingers and work their way back.

‘Your No 9 feels like it has to be like Alan Shearer, or Harry Kane, whereas maybe the profile is changing. We have to change as well. There are a lot of players, like Rico Lewis or Trent Alexander-Arnold, who can play in that left-hand area of the pitch as opposed to being in that defined position. We have to be creative.

‘These jobs are definitely not impossible. Definitely not. To please everyone is impossible, and there will always be a debate around squad selection – and so there should be. The only way to get rid of that is to win.’

In that regard, Carsley expresses sympathy for Gareth Southgate. He’d called his old boss, who resigned after the Euro 2024 final defeat by Spain, before the August announcement that he was taking interim charge – ‘I wanted him to hear it from me’ – and talks of how Southgate and his assistant Steve Holland had lent their support. Carsley insists that their role in making England truly competitive again, resulting in Southgate’s knighthood, cannot be overlooked.

He realises the strain Southgate was under by the end and can compare that to his own experiences: Greece and the national anthem.

‘People say, “ah, bet your life has changed now, hasn’t it?” It didn’t and hasn’t one bit,’ he says. ‘I went to the same places. I’m low-key anyway, my lifestyle didn’t change. I’m familiar to people, I’m around, I’m not wearing a hat, glasses or a wig.’

It’s suggested that Carsley has only one pair of clothes, his England tracksuit. An accusation he firmly denies, which we’ll have to take his word on.

‘The national anthem… obviously it was a big thing but with the people I was talking to on the street, (the coverage) didn’t seem to marry up with what they were saying. I respect the anthem but stand by it. There seemed to be an overreaction.

‘First game, Ireland away (the country he represented as a player), not ideal! It was tough, that. I respect people have their jobs to do and they are tough jobs. What I found interesting is what you’d read or see wasn’t reflected when I was out and about.

‘There was a lot of positivity around the squad, making changes, freshening things up. I felt a wave of “it’s young, it’s fast, it’s energetic, exciting”. Not that it wasn’t in the past but it probably needed that injection of enthusiasm from the players.

‘I don’t want to be the news. I’m always wary of becoming a headline, I don’t want the focus on me – I want it to be on the team. People might say “he’s not good with the media”, and that’s fine – I’m really good on the pitch. Like, really good on the pitch.’

Naively, he is then asked to elaborate. He backtracks slightly, in what is quintessentially trademark Carsley, later bashfully admitting a few England regulars messaged him to say thanks. ‘I wouldn’t say I excel at it but I am good,’ he adds. ‘I enjoy it. I love being with the players, making them better. I care about the job. I try to put them first and I think they feel that.

‘That’s where I connect with the players, where I can communicate. I definitely need to get better at being in front of the cameras, I need to work on it.’

Intriguing. Carsley rejected permanent positions at Coventry City, Brentford and Birmingham City after interim appointments in the years before England, shying away from the glare. He has been offered quite a few opportunities after winning the Under 21 Euros in 2023, when the smart money was on him departing.

Yet Carsley is still here, in at St George’s Park three times a week, and now discussing improving when mics waft under his chin.

‘I really love this job,’ he says. ‘The trust Mark (Bullingham, FA chief executive), Debbie (Hewitt, FA president) and John (McDermott, FA technical director) have got in me… I definitely want to repay them. I want to try to do what Dave Sexton did and be part of a squad to win it twice. And then, touch wood, be part of winning it three times.

‘I’ve not got an itch wondering if I can do it. I’ve done it. If I retired tomorrow I’m not going to be kicking myself about not doing things. I’ve done the club, done England, I just love coaching players.’

So, overall, England was enjoyable?

‘I wasn’t put off by it.’