Lee Carsley could not have been any clearer: “I definitely don’t see this as a fresh start.”
Doing his first pre-match press conference as England’s interim head coach, at a hotel outside Dublin, Carsley was keen to paint his job as continuing the work of Gareth Southgate rather than replacing it.
He spoke about how, often in football, a caretaker manager comes in when the team involved are at a low ebb, struggling in the table or low on confidence. But this, taking over an England team who got to the final of consecutive European Championships, was “the total opposite”.
“I don’t see this as a fresh start,” Carsley reiterated before England’s first 2024-25 Nations League group game against the Republic of Ireland here on Saturday evening. “This is a chance to build on what they’ve done in the past.”
And yet it is impossible to avoid a feeling of newness in Ireland, the sense of a cut-off and of a blank page, about this England camp. Not least because it is Carsley answering the media’s questions and preparing the team. The last time England’s senior side were managed by someone other than Southgate was Sam Allardyce’s sole game in charge, eight years ago this week.
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England’s previous game, that Euro 2024 final against Spain, was less than eight weeks ago but feels like it happened in a completely different age.
If they had won, we would still all be talking about it, about the heroes of Berlin, the open-top bus parade, the parties, the knighthoods and so on. Maybe victory that night might have even convinced Southgate to extend his contract and take the team on towards the World Cup in 2026. But we all know what happened instead: England were outplayed and lost. Southgate stood down. And, last month, the job was handed to Carsley, the England Under-21s manager whose team beat the Spanish in the final of their Euros 14 months ago, on an interim basis.
Carsley has former England left-back Ashley Cole as part of his coaching staff (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
So it has all felt very different since Carsley sat in Southgate’s old seat at England’s St George’s Park base just over a week ago to announce his squad.
One of the many challenges Carsley faces is in balancing those competing impulses for continuity and change. He has spoken very respectfully about Southgate’s work and building on his nearly eight years in the job and those two finals he took England to. He would not get very far if he came in and said he wanted to rip everything up and start again.
But equally, Carsley does want to take this team forward.
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Angel Gomes, the midfielder at French club Lille developed in Manchester United’s academy, revealed this week how Carsley had told the players that in recent years England teams have “represented the country in the best way possible”, but that now it was time to build on that, “and make the next step in winning a tournament”.
Carsley, the 50-year-old, English-born former Republic of Ireland midfielder, will be his own man. He is not going to bring Southgate’s World Cup 2018 waistcoat back any time soon.
The sense of freshness is reinforced by the make-up of this England squad. There are nine players here in Dublin who were not in Germany in June and July. Three of them — Nick Pope, Jack Grealish and Harry Maguire — are experienced players who were involved a lot in the old regime. Rico Lewis and Levi Colwill have one senior cap each. The other four — Gomes, Tino Livramento, Morgan Gibbs-White and Noni Madueke — are uncapped.
While Carsley said on Friday that he considers Southgate’s Euro 2024 campaign a success, he admitted that others will view it differently. And when he announced this squad he spoke of the importance of bringing energy to a group who might need a lift after what they experienced in that tournament. “The squad maybe needs that little injection of enthusiasm and energy,” Carsley said of Madueke, referring to the disappointment of battling their way to that final only to lose it, 2-1, to a late goal.
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The new generation in his selection also changes the dynamic in a different way. Remember that Gibbs-White, Gomes and Madueke were all part of that under-21s team that won their European Championship under Carsley last year. And to listen to Gibbs-White and Gomes talk about him this week was to realise how loyal they are to Carsley in particular.
Gibbs-White could not have been more positive about the man he calls ‘Cars’. “He’s a great manager, tactically, man-management is great,” Gibbs-White said. “I was buzzing when I found out he got the job because I felt like he really deserved it. And I feel like it suits him perfectly.” Later on, he described Carsley as “the perfect guy for this job”.
So there will be plenty of players in this squad for whom not just July 14 in Berlin but the whole Southgate era was something they watched on television. Something they aspired to be part of, but which was never truly theirs. For them, the new era starts now.
Whether Carsley sees this as a “fresh start” or not, we all know that clean slates do not really exist. Any new era always involves trying to answer old questions.
There are plenty of unsolved issues from the Southgate era sitting in Carsley’s in-tray: can an England team ever be good enough in possession against a top side? How do you get the best out of Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham at the same time? Is there a Plan B to attack without Harry Kane? Can a new balance be found, building on the organisation and structure of Gazball, but with more entertainment?
Gibbs-White has worked closely with Carsley at under-21 level (Carl Recine/Getty Images)
Ultimately, the real test of whether Dublin this weekend is kicking off a new era or not will come in the next few months.
If the FA decides Carsley is the right man to take England down the road to that next World Cup in two years’ time, then everyone will look back on this game as the moment where it all began. But if the FA decides that, on second thoughts, it would like to go external — and appoint an Eddie Howe, a Graham Potter or similar — this, and Tuesday’s match with Finland at Wembley, will simply be a footnote in history.
But remember when England were responding to another Euros disappointment and another managerial resignation.
When Allardyce succeeded Roy Hodgson and managed the team for what proved the first and last time — a 1-0 away win against Slovakia in their opening World Cup 2018 qualifier — everyone thought it was the start of a new phase that would at least take them as far as the finals in Russia. But Allardyce did not even make it to the next international break. And when Southgate managed his first game — at home against Malta, one month later, having stepped up from the under-21s job on an interim basis — nobody knew it would be the start of the most successful England tenure since Sir Alf Ramsey.
Carsley referred to that period immediately after Euro 2016 at his press conference. He knows he has a far better inheritance than either Allardyce or Southgate picked up from the Hodgson era eight years ago, meaning it is a very different job.
“When Gareth took over the team, they were in a lower position in terms of the amount of quality that was around,” Carsley said. “But now it is totally different in that respect. These players are used to competing. The standards are so high.
“We spoke a bit about how you want to be remembered. They’re so close. Hopefully, they go that one step further. The hardest thing is that last push.”
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(Top photo: Carsley will take charge of England for the first time in Dublin today; by Cameron Smith/Getty Images)
