Inside Lee Carsley’s plan to land the England manager’s job permanently and how he will change the team

It wouldn’t have taken too many different turns for Lee Carsley to be on the opposite bench in Dublin this Saturday, for what is now his first match as interim England manager.

The Irish federation maybe just needed to go a bit stronger. The Football Association of Ireland had made Carsley its top target for the manager role, on account of his fine coaching reputation, as well as his background of having 40 caps for Ireland. The 50-year-old has a grandfather from Cork, which gave him a similar decision to make to the time when Jack Charlton’s coaching staff approached him about joining the Irish Under-21s back in 1995. Carsley decided to go for it then. This time, though, he wasn’t so sure.

Those who know the former midfielder say the sort of offer the FAI was talking about didn’t reflect his status as a top target, or even his true worth. This week, the Irish federation and England may start to really see the latter. Carsley’s decision to stick with the Football Association may even end up one of those moments of happenstance that has huge effect, a bit like Gareth Southgate temporarily taking the job in late 2016. When Ireland first came in for Carsley last year, one of the justifications for staying was that he might eventually get the England job. It was seen as outlandish at the time. No more.

Games away to Ireland and at home to Finland on Tuesday are the start of one long audition, extending to next March at least. Carsley didn’t acknowledge that in last week’s introductory press conference but his words were seen as an indirect pitch for the job. He described himself as a “safe pair of hands”, although everyone else sees him as much more than that. “Safe” is even an ironic word to use because one hope is that he finally gives England the more adventurous approach many have long craved; he is widely seen as a more progressive coach than Southgate.

That has come from a coaching education that coincided with English football’s evolution into one of the most productive cultures in the world. Carsley benefited from that, as well as from his own acumen. His insight struck those at Manchester City when he took over as Under-18 coach in 2016. Carsley managed players like Phil Foden and Jadon Sancho, so word quickly got around that he was one of the brightest coaches in the game.

Former teammates soon called him “Mourinho”, and that at a point when the Portuguese manager was still one of the world’s elite. It’s maybe slightly surprising since Carsley has never displayed any of Mourinho’s abrasiveness or politicking. He could be firm, sure, but always encouraging. The line you hear when you ask anyone about him is “everyone likes him”.

Opposition assistant manager John O’Shea played with Carsley multiple times for Ireland and is just as warm. “As a teammate and person, any time I see him, I always get on well with Lee, or ‘Carso’ as he’s known.”

In Ireland, anyway. In England, it’s the slightly abbreviated “Cars”, and he played a role in the coaching education of O’Shea and many others by giving instruction in their A licence course.

That affability made Carsley ideal for the underage team jobs he took with England, right up to the Under-21s.

Those who played under him at that level, such as Anthony Gordon and Cole Palmer, are genuinely delighted he has taken the job for now. Gordon has even described Carsley as the “best man-manager” he has played under, with that view echoed by other testimonies.

“He was very good,” Conor Gallagher says. “Very honest and very demanding, but also very laidback. He makes the players feel at ease when they’re speaking to him.”

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Angel Gomes uses almost identical words.

“He is a very fair coach, very honest.”

The surprising selection of Lille-based Gomes was perhaps the first pointer of how this isn’t just a continuity candidate from Southgate’s time. The midfield No 6 position has long been England’s problem role; there’s an argument that the consequent lack of control was the decisive flaw in Southgate’s inability to win trophies. Carsley himself went for a creative solution, becoming the first manager to move Gomes there from a more forward role when in the Under-21s. He has now picked the midfielder for the senior team, despite a move to a less-valued division like France’s Ligue 1. It is also seen as a sign of a highly admired loyalty.

More than that, though, it is viewed as a highly defined interpretation of the game. Having come through a coaching education where English academies wanted to play more expansively, Carsley’s idea was further honed under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City.

It marks a difference to his own playing career as a defensive midfielder, but that is something that often happens with players perceived as less talented. They learn to read the game to a deeper level.

“The majority of my teams when I was playing were very defensive,” Carsley says. “When I started coaching, it was something I wanted to try and get away from. I’d played in teams where you were very well-organised and you sat in and now and then you had the ball and then you broke. But I was mindful as a coach of how I wanted the players to feel. I want our players to be on the ball, I want our team to attack, to be expansive.”

But. “It’s being in control as well, which is a big thing for us.”

Such an approach still sounds different to Southgate’s time, which was ultimately influenced by the more Mourinho-geared stance of assistant Steve Holland. England always held one player back in the press.

That wouldn’t be seen in a Carsley team. It wasn’t seen in his 2023 Under-21 European Championship victory, which marked England’s first win in the competition since 1984. Carsley’s team beat a tactically sophisticated Spain, doing to a Spanish side what Southgate’s couldn’t.

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Morgan Gibbs-White, a player in that team now called up the senior squad, spoke glowingly about it.

“Tactically, you only have to look at our performances at the Euros last year,” he said. “We didn’t concede a goal so that says a lot about how we went forward with the ball and how we played, but also how solid we were.”

This points to one of two major themes of Carsley’s spell. The first is whether he can impose this style, and mark a valued evolution from Southgate.

There has already been some hope from training, and excitement over how Jack Grealish and Eberechi Eze are going to be used. The only pity is that Palmer, Phil Foden and Jude Bellingham are injured.

“If we are going to win a Euros and a World Cup, we have to push it further forward,” Carsley says, “having the confidence in the biggest moments… having players capable of taking the ball and playing.”

He went on to speak about having young players who have won underage international trophies but that points to the second theme. That’s whether Carsley himself can push on from an underage coach to a senior team.

Even allowing for his European Championship victory, underage level is about development. The senior team is about deliverance. There are different expectations, in a different experience.

The caveat is that the reigning European champions themselves, Spain, have shown how underage coaches can step up in Luis de la Fuente.

A connected question in the game right now, however, is whether the 2026 World Cup will influence this. There is a belief that, since this is the most commercialised World Cup in history given how most of it takes place in the US, the big nations will all seek box-office names. Many people in football say that one reason Carsley has been given such an extended interim spell is because of the hope the FA can eventually attract Guardiola.

Guardiola, however, is a huge admirer of Carsley. He might also say there is nothing as commercial in football as an entertaining and winning team. Carsley now has the chance to show he can offer that.