Lee Carsley has explained his hugely bold England line-up for the Nations League clash with Greece.

Article continues below

Article continues below

Article continues below

• Carsley picks hugely ambitious attacking team
• Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka and Phil Foden all start
• Jude Bellingham and Anthony Gordon also play

• Table of Contents

  Toggle

  WHAT HAPPENED?

  England play Greece on Wednesday evening in the Nations League and interim manager Carsley picked a hugely bold starting XI. In that team, he has picked Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham, Cole Palmer, and Anthony Gordon, with the only holding midfielder seemingly being Declan Rice.

Advertisement

• Getty
  

  THE BIGGER PICTURE

  Carsley has explained that the thinking behind the line-up is for fluidity in the forward line, with most of England's attacking players on the pitch, barring Harry Kane, who is injured. As a result of his absence, the new boss has chosen to experiment with a false nine system.

• WHAT CARSLEY SAID

  Carsley told ITV: "It's given us the chance to try something, to be creative with the system and with, hopefully, the way that we play. We've got to give Greece the respect they deserve, we talk about how exciting and creative we can be, it's important that we also match them physically."

  Asked if the system was the same as one he used for the U21s, he replied: "It's a little bit different. Anthony would be a different profile to Jude in the way that he played that role but what we have got with the players on the pitch is a lot of flexibility. You may see a lot of changes tonight."

ENJOYED THIS STORY?

Add GOAL.com as a preferred source on Google to see more of our reporting

• Getty Images Sport
  

  WHAT NEXT?

  This weekend, England travel to Helsinki to play Finland in their next Nations League clash. They will aim to head off in fine form.

Tags: Futebol
Category: News