Carsley told me England will be “a little more traditional” against Finland on Sunday night than they were against Greece.
England lost 2-1 at Wembley on Thursday after Carsley’s striker-less experimental line-up backfired in a disastrous performance.
Harry Kane missed the match due to injury against Greece, so Jude Bellingham played up front instead. But now that the England captain has recovered and completed training over the past two days, Carsley has promised a return to a more traditional system on Sunday.
Carsley, 50, insisted he would learn from the Wembley disaster on Thursday, and said it was important to try new things even if they were not always successful.
“It’s something I will reconsider in two or three months and I will be better for it,” the interim England coach said in his pre-match press conference on Saturday.
“I wanted to give this job my best three camps. I didn’t want to have any regrets. It’s important that we tried something different. I think I’ll be a better coach for that. But I think we’ll probably be a little more traditional tomorrow night.”
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This is likely to mean the return of Bayern Munich striker Kane and most likely changes in the midfield. Jack Grealish, who excelled in the last camp, also returned to training after missing the Greece match.
“I think it’s important that we revamp the team a little bit,” Carsley said. He promised to make adjustments to personnel and tactics to address some of the defensive weaknesses seen on Thursday.
“We didn’t keep the ball well enough in the high areas, we got into some really good positions,” Carsley said. “I’ve watched the game a few times now. There’s always an emotional reaction after the game, and at times it wasn’t good enough.
“But there are a lot of positives in the game. But we know we can do much better than what we showed. The big thing tomorrow is to show that reaction. It’s a game the players are looking forward to.”
England currently occupies second place in Group Two of the second league in the European Nations League, with six points from the first three matches, three points behind Greece, which leads the group.
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(Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
