Lee Carsley suggests Cole Palmer or Bukayo Saka could play left back for England
Carsley said England will need to be ‘creative’ as they look to fit a number of star players into the same team
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Interim manager Lee Carsley has suggested Trent Alexander-Arnold, Bukayo Saka or Cole Palmer could play at left-back for England.
The left side of defence was a problem position for England before Carsley took interim charge, with Luke Shaw and Ben Chilwell struggling for fitness.
Carsley has not named a recognised left-back in his 25-man squad for upcoming fixtures against Greece and Finland in the Nations League.
Levi Colwill and Rico Lewis played there in last month’s wins over Ireland and Finland and Carsley said England could look at other options.
When asked if right-back Alexander-Arnold could feature on the opposite side, Carsley suggested forwards Saka and Palmer could play there.
England have developed a squad of multi-positional players and Carsley said the Three Lions could look to be “creative” as they aim to be unpredictable.
“[Alexander-Arnold] can play there. Bukayo can play there, Cole can play there, so there’s quite a few,” Carsley said when asked about the left-back position.
“Obviously you want to get the best out of them in their most natural positions. We know if we play a right-footed player there, at left-back, that we’re going to have to build differently and be creative in the way we set up.
“I think if you’re asking a right-footed player to play high and wide and playing too high and wide, it can sometimes be a little bit predictable. It’s important that we aren’t predictable, that we’ve got different ways of attacking.
“I think with the players we’ve got we can also swap the players over the wide players so they are on their natural sides just to give the opposition something different to think about."
Palmer’s outstanding start to the Premier League season, where he has scored six goals and made four assists in six games, has added to England’s attacking options and the Chelsea forward has returned to the squad.
Carsley said it is possible to get Palmer, Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden into the same team, behind captain Harry Kane, but said England would need to be “creative” in order to do so.
The interim manager said it’s a “nice problem to have” but suggested he would not be in a rush to try and fit all three attacking midfielders into the same team ahead of fixtures against Greece and Finland in the Nations League.
“You’d try and find a way of getting them into the team,” Carsley said. “We’ve got to be creative… if they are all playing well and they all earn that place in the team. I think that’s important as well.
“With the period of the season we are in, I can probably justify why we wouldn’t start all three of them at the same time in terms of the amount of games that they’re playing, what they are going back to and what they have come from.
“And some of the stages they are at in terms of potentially just coming back from injury or not had that many minutes. We just need to find the balance.”
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