No sooner had Jack Grealish stood by the side of the pitch at Helsinki’s Olympic Stadium and declared his faith in Lee Carsley than England’s interim manager said to the same TV station that the job was one for a world class manager who had won trophies.
Ten minutes after that, Carsley sat behind a table in a vast room beneath the stadium and was asked, quite reasonably, whether he had finally ruled himself out of the running to be Gareth Southgate’s long-term successor.
‘That would be the wrong assessment,’ he said.
And so the Carsley merry go round continues to whirl. To say that the mood around England has changed since Carsley breezed through his opening two Nations League fixtures in September would be an understatement.
The messaging back then was only positive. Carsley felt fresh and new and brave and his first squad reflected that. The 50-year-old said he wanted England to play ambitiously and they did, albeit against modest opposition.
Interim manager Lee Carsley pictured in a press conference after England beat Finland 3-1
Goalscorer Jack Grealish declared his faith in Carsley following the final whistle in Helsinki
Carsley has overseen three wins and one defeat during his spell in charge of the senior side
England became European champions at U21 level under the guidance of Carsley last year
Much of that optimism has now sadly dissipated. A lamentable home defeat to Greece last Thursday stuck a huge pin the Carsley balloon and his subsequent rhetoric around the issue of whether he wants the England job has only mirrored that performance in terms of its confusion and contradiction.
Carsley is a good bloke doing his best to help the FA out of a tricky spot. But the issue of whether his hat is in or out of the ring in terms of the big job has now reached farcical levels.
He could choose to end the discussion. He could choose to answer straight questions with straight answers. Equally, he could declare that he was not prepared to talk about the matter at all until the end of his six-game interim stint in a month’s time.
But no. Instead we now seem stuck in the middle of a game of claim and counter claim. Quote and counter quote. The more Carsley says on the matter, the more murky the picture gets. It’s not really his fault. In fact it’s hard not to feel a bit sorry for him. But this is the England job. Nowhere on its job description does it say it is easy.
The prevailing wind continues to blow towards the feeling that Carsley does not want this job and that’s perfectly fair. It’s just a puzzle that he chooses not to say so.
He is a coach at heart. That is why he still spends Fridays working with young players at the Strachan Academy in the midlands. He still carries the job as England Under 21 coach as well and he reminded us of that on Sunday.
England’s victory over Finland left Carsley’s side second in UEFA Nations League Group B1
Carsley pictured shouting instructions to his players during Sunday night’s game in Helsinki
Interim manager Carsley pictured speaking to defender Kyle Walker by the side of the pitch
Jude Bellingham (left) pictured smiling after being subbed off in the 80th minute on Sunday
In terms of the senior squad, the mood has definitely changed. This performance at Helsinki’s lovely and sympathetically refurbished Olympic Stadium was unexciting but satisfactory enough. After last week’s experiments against Greece, Carsley returned to something approaching a conventional selection. England were not particularly expansive or entertaining but they got the win they needed after the horrors of Wembley.
Thing do feel different now, though. A month ago, we thought we were watching a manager taking his first steps on a road towards the future. Carsley declared himself not daunted by the job and said he was up for all that it entails, on the pitch and away from it.
Now it feels very much as though England are in some kind of holding pattern. A pause button has been pressed on the back of Carsley’s hesitancy. And now we are left to return to the desperately tricky question of: If not Lee then who?
On TV on Sunday night Roy Keane was happy to toss Pep Guardiola’s name in to the night air. Not exactly a radical thought, that. If the FA wish to appoint an Englishman, which they do, then the field of candidates is small. So the closer we get to some kind of decision day, the further away an answer appears to be. It is far from ideal, given that we can expect World Cup qualifiers to begin next March.
On the field, meanwhile, familiar issues remain. The problem of how on earth to formulate England’s attacking potential in to some kind of cohesive unit remains real. Cole Palmer came in to this international break full of invention, running and goals for Chelsea. Yet he returns to his club having left barely a visible footprint on these two games. Similar can be said once again of Harry Kane who returned to the team after missing the Greece fixture only to contribute little more than the persistent effort we have come to expect.
Man City boss Pep Guardiola has been suggested as a possible candidate for the England job
Cole Palmer (centre) was substituted off in the 69th minute after touching the ball 51 times
Having missed England’s 2-1 loss to Greece, Harry Kane (No 9) played 69 minutes on Sunday
The truth is that too many England players continue to leave their club form at home when they join up with England.
Grealish was progressive here against a robust Finland team who could have scored at least two more goals than the one they grabbed at the death. Trent Alexander-Arnold scored a super free-kick, meanwhile. England’s busiest and most impressive player, though, was the holding midfield player Angel Gomes. I am not sure what that tells us.
England’s mission was clear. They had to win in order to erase the stain left by last Thursday. With that done, Carsley will now lead them to Athens next month knowing that a decent victory will put them back in charge of the group.
Carsley said here that he wished that game could take place next week. And that’s one of the problems with international management. Much of the job involves waiting and thinking and planning and, well, a bit more waiting. It suits some coaches and not others and the more we watch and listen to him the more it feels as though Carsley would be better suited to something else.
Asked here if the constant conjecture about his intentions was starting to wear on him a little, he said it wasn’t. It’s hard to believe him. There is an option or two available to him as we move forward but he won’t be taking them any time soon.
And so we move on to November and the end game. We think we know now how it plays out. Carsley continues to look and talk, on the whole, like a man who knows his finish line is in sight.
