Lee Carsley has said that England will be “a little bit more conventional” against Finland on Sunday night than they were against Greece.
England lost 2-1 at Wembley on Thursday after Carsley’s experimental striker-less line-up backfired in a disastrous performance.
Harry Kane was out injured against Greece, so Jude Bellingham played up front instead. But now that the England captain has recovered and come through training the last two days, Carsley has promised to go back to a more traditional system on Sunday.
Carsley, 50, insisted that he will learn from Thursday’s Wembley debacle, and said that it was important to try new things even if they did not always come off.
“It’s something that I’ll look back on in maybe two or three months and be better for it,” the interim England manager told his pre-match press conference on Saturday.
“I wanted to give this job my best shot for three camps. I didn’t want to have any regrets. It’s important that we did try something different. I think I’ll be a better coach for that. But I think we’ll probably be a little bit more conventional tomorrow night.”
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That will likely mean a return of Bayern Munich striker Kane and most probably changes in midfield. Jack Grealish, who shone in the last camp, has also returned to training having missed the Greece game.
“I think it’s important that we freshen the team up a little bit,” Carsley said. He promised tweaks to both personnel and tactics to address some of the defensive frailties seen on Thursday.
“We didn’t keep the ball well enough in higher areas, we got into some really good positions,” Carsley said. “I’ve watched the game back a couple of times now. There’s always an emotional reaction after the game, at points in the game it wasn’t good enough.
“But there’s a lot of positives from the game. But we know that we can do a lot better than what we’ve shown. And the big thing tomorrow is showing that reaction. It’s a game that the players are looking forward to.”
England are currently second in Group 2 of League B in the Nations League with six points from their opening three matches — three points behind group leaders Greece.
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(Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
