LONDON — On the plus side, Lee Carsley now has a ready-made reply the next time he’s asked if all of England‘s best young attackers can fit into the same team.
The downside for the interim manager is that in finding out the answer he might have dented his prospects of getting the job full-time. A team that crammed in Bukayo Saka, Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Cole Palmer and Anthony Gordon was shocked 2-1 by Greece on Thursday in the UEFA Nations League.
Carsley’s ultra-attacking experiment had long since been abandoned by the time Vangelis Pavlidis scored a stoppage-time winner to send the Greeks’ corner of Wembley into a sea of blue and white bedlam. In truth, though, they were by far the better team, and it said everything about their superiority that they had the ball in the net five times.
It was fortunate for Carsley that the offside flag meant only two counted and a night which threatened to descend into utter humiliation held on at just plain embarrassing.
“I didn’t think we started the game great and I thought that we were second best a lot of times,” Carsley said. “We tried something different with the formation and the areas of the pitch we tried to get into.
“We never really gave ourselves a chance to see if it was the right decision or wrong.
“Obviously looking at the result and how the game panned out it was a challenging night for us. Greece played well. I thought they were highly motivated as you would expect and were second best tonight.”
With Harry Kane sidelined because of a thigh problem, Carsley threw caution to the wind. Perhaps getting sick of the argument about whether Bellingham, Foden or Palmer should play as England’s No. 10, he decided to pick them all. Saka and Gordon were chosen on the wings but rather than a flurry of attacking football, instead they served a tactical mishmash.
With no balance and no discernible patterns, Greece were able to defend with relative ease.
A Bellingham effort that was tipped over the bar in the second minute was England’s only shot on target until Bellingham popped up again on the edge of the penalty area to score an 87th-minute equaliser.
In the intervening 85 minutes, the most accurate effort from an Englishman came when a paper aeroplane thrown from the crowd hit Greece captain Anastasios Bakasetas as he made another rampaging run forward. Greeks racing forward were themes of the night. Too often Declan Rice was left trying to put out fires while Bellingham, Foden and Palmer were caught upfield.
Palmer — who was named England’s Player of the Year this week despite playing just 144 minutes at the Euros — was so deep that he collected his first two passes from centre-back Levi Colwill. He clearly had the licence to roam forward, but it meant he was caught in an awkward middle ground never really sure which way he should be going.
“With the players we have got, we have to be courageous at times with our systems and be creative,” Carsley said.
“I thought it was important to try something different. It was a case of let’s try something different and I’m happy to take blame for that. It was totally my idea. I thought about it long and hard, in terms of how it might look, how it might build and how it might feel. It is something that didn’t come off tonight.”
With Trent Alexander-Arnold allowed to move into the centre from right-back, Foden, Bellingham and Palmer were all lost to the midfield melee. There were too many bodies when England tried to attack and not enough when they were asked to defend. There was a warning after just five minutes when a quick Greece counter attack left England two-on-two at the back. Pavlidis shot wide but made up for it later with two well-taken goals.
Carsley was eventually forced into a change when Saka went off injured almost immediately after half-time. Gordon and Foden followed not long afterwards, but by then Greece had realised that a historic result was there for the taking and were in no mood to pass up the opportunity.
It looked like Bellingham’s late goal had robbed them of the victory they thoroughly deserved, but Pavlidis had other ideas. His 94th-minute goal earned Greece their first-ever win over England while also re-writing history as the lowest-ranked side to win a competitive game on English soil.
At 48 in FIFA’s rankings, they sit just above Costa Rica and Chile.
England next head to Finland and for Carsley it will be back to the drawing board. Perhaps the same now goes for the FA as they continue their search for a new permanent manager.
National anthem singing aside, the popular opinion was that Carsley had boosted his prospects with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Finland during the last international break.
But there can be little doubt that losing to Greece — a team that failed to qualify for last summer’s Euros — is a major setback. The result was bad, the performance was worse and the debate about whether England’s array of attacking stars can play together has been put to bed once and for all.
