Lee Carsley has promised that England will attack Greece again on Thursday night as they aim for the two-goal win that will get them back to the top of their Nations League group.
England lost 2-1 to Greece at Wembley last month, as Carsley tried an experimental line-up that backfired in a disastrous performance. But Carsley, speaking ahead of his penultimate game in charge of the national team, promised that he would go on the attack again in Athens as they aim to return to the top of the group.
Carsley knows that England need at least a two-goal win on Thursday, and to beat the Republic of Ireland at Wembley on Sunday, to win the group. If they do not then Thomas Tuchel will start his England tenure in March with a two-legged Nations League play-off.
“It’s important that we try and win the game and perform well,” Carsley said on Wednesday. “They are the priorities. The type of team I will pick – as you can probably guess – will be quite attacking. That’s the way I coach and how I want their attitudes to be, I want to attack. Hopefully that will work out well.”
Carsley insisted that he did not regret his bold selection from the first game, when he picked a strikerless team with an unbalanced midfield and Greece repeatedly cut through England on the break. He said their approach that day could even “give [Tuchel] some ideas”.
“It’s easy to regret something after you know the results and the performance,” Carsley said. “I believed in what we tried. It was important to try something different. From a long term point of view, it’s another opportunity for the new head coach to see something that we have tried. It maybe gives him some ideas.”
“I watch a lot of football and players are even more adaptable to the styles and the systems that they play. So I definitely don’t regret trying something different. I think it’s easy to regret things after the event, once you’ve realised the result. But I am still disappointed in the manner of the goals we conceded. Really poor goals and really poor timing right at the end of the game.”
With England facing a raft of pull-outs earlier this week, Carsley said that the November break always leads to selection problems.
“November historically has always been a really challenging month for us with the number of the games the players are playing,” he said. “A lot of the injuries they carry need managing through games, but historically we have lost a fair number of players in November.
“The plus side is that it gives us chance to bring in other players and give them opportunities so we are still in a good place.”
Jarell Quansah has travelled to Greece with Jarrad Branthwaite unlikely to be available, having not trained this week.
GO DEEPER
Tuchel is wasting precious time by not taking charge of England this month
(Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
