The Southgate era is over, the Carsley era has begun. Whether it lasts, we shall find out, but one thing's for sure; he's got a different vision and way of playing with these England players to his predecessor...
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00:00Right, hello everybody. Adam Cleary from 442. Sorry, I've just got to set all the cameras
00:07up before I start these things. Now, Lee Carsley, he's the England manager for this weekend
00:12and potentially even longer in the future. And I think that's really cool. The question
00:17of who is going to ultimately replace Gareth Southgate in the long term will run and run
00:21and run until it is obviously answered by the FA. But until then, Lee Carsley is the
00:26man steering England through both qualification and the Nations League. Now, of course, whoever
00:31gets the England job will be right here on this channel doing a what will X person's
00:36England squad ultimately look like video. But the thing is, that'll just be guesswork
00:41because national football is really weird and you can't have the kind of players you
00:44want. You've got to make the best of what you've got. So it's really difficult to tell
00:48you what a certain person's England squad will be unless they have already literally
00:55managed half this squad.
01:00Right, so with that intro, got a big what are you on about out of you. Lee Carsley was
01:05the England under 21 manager as recently as the most recent tournament. He guided them
01:10to a frankly stunning tournament performance that saw them go all the way, not concede
01:15a single goal and win the bloody trophy. And in that squad was James Trafford, Levi Colwell,
01:21Morgan Gibbs-White, Emile Smith-Rowe, Anthony Gordon, Jared Brantwaite, Curtis Jones, Harvey
01:26Elliott, Cole Palmer, Angel Gomez, Noni Mandewicke. All players who in the 12 months since that
01:32tournament have been, to use the Andy Townsend expression, in and around the full England
01:38set up. And if you did not watch one single minute of England at the under 21 European
01:42Championships, let me tell you right now, it's my professional measured opinion, right?
01:48They were f***ing brilliant. The primary set up was of all things just a standard 4-4-2,
01:54but there was not really a first 11 more or less. Every single member of that squad was
01:58brought in and brought out across the course of the tournament. This was the 11 they started
02:03the semi-final against Israel with. And I'm going to focus on that game because it was
02:07probably their single best performance. And what should be jumping out at you immediately
02:12is that even though this is just your average sort of 4-4-2, loads of players here don't
02:16feel like they're in the right position, do they? Like James Garner at right back feels
02:21like a completely rogue shout, doesn't it? And Curtis Jones and Gomez in the middle doesn't
02:25feel like a midfield two. They're both much better like in a three or in a wide area or
02:30in a more attacking position. Emile Smith-Rowe is just an out of the box left winger. Anthony
02:34Gordon and Morgan Gibbs-White, two attackers, yes, but not centre forwards. And the reason
02:40this looks so snooker loopy, right, is because the positions in this England under 21 side
02:45were largely meaningless. It's not how they played when they were on the ball at all.
02:49It's just kind of like the defensive shape they went into when they lost it. Just to
02:54demonstrate what I mean, right, this is a heat map from one of those players across
02:58the course of the entire tournament, right? Would you like to hazard a guess who it belongs
03:03to? They do a lot of work in this sort of like right hand half space, but they're over
03:06on the touchline. They're over on the left sometimes. They'll drop deep into the middle
03:10to help with the build up. They'll come all the way back here and back there as well.
03:14Any guesses? That belongs to centre forward Morgan Gibbs-White. What about this one? Any
03:19guesses? Clearly they're playing on the right hand side, spending a lot more time in the
03:22opposition half, but clearly licensed to move into the centre to get on the ball or even
03:26go all the way over to the left hand side if they need to. Anybody? Anybody? It's right
03:31back James Garner. And there's like a mad story to tell about every single one of these
03:35players if you look at where they ended up across the course of the whole tournament.
03:38Like this is Emile Smith-Rowe and he was of course out on the left hand side where he
03:42received the ball a lot, but also he was trying to get on it in every single central
03:47area he could. Like clearly this was just a starting position for him. But the maddest
03:51one of all, right, this is the tournament heat map of literal player of the tournament,
03:57Anthony Gordon. If you're looking at this and kind of squinting to try and make it all
04:01out because it's so pale and so unconcentrated, there's virtually no consistent areas, right?
04:08He very rarely actually got on the ball. He wasn't really a key part of the buildup
04:12or the attack or the creation or anything like that. Anthony Gordon had more or less
04:17a free roll to go wherever he wanted to finish off chances. And how that all ended up looking
04:22in reality was just sort of crazy because you'd have Emile Smith-Rowe starting on the
04:26left hand side here, but trying to come across and like play in his left half space, possibly
04:30even as a number 10, you get all the width then provided by Luke Thomas down the left
04:34hand side. Cole Palmer would sort of want to come into this space here. Gibbs-White
04:38would feel free to drop out into these spaces here. The midfielders, they would push up
04:42as well. You had James Garner who would come across and basically invert and sit as a number
04:48six with the two centre backs. Colwell and Howard Bellis, who were both brilliant on
04:52the ball sitting there and they could sort of get this sort of three player triangle
04:57going and you ended up with this absolutely nuts, really quite violent attacking shape.
05:03And it was just honestly like such a sight to behold in this tournament because if we
05:07just take this build up here and we stop it right there, okay, these are the starting
05:13positions of every player who is now involved in this attack. Like that is wild. And the
05:19real eagle-eyed amongst you will be looking at this and looking at that and going, hang
05:23on, that doesn't actually line up with what you said at all here. You said the width was
05:27coming from the left back and James Garner would invert into the middle and you're getting
05:32it now. You're starting to understand it could be anything at any time and they were
05:37fine with it all. The reason I've chosen to highlight that goal in particular is because
05:41I think more than anything else they scored in that tournament. It sums up what this England
05:45under 21 side was capable of doing. Because we start with the ball with Morgan Gibbs-White,
05:51your out and out centre forward who's dropped into this half space sort of pocket position
05:56when none of the centre backs are going to go anywhere near him. Emile Smith-Rowe, who
05:59is, remember, the left winger in this scenario. He's come across into a central area but now
06:03runs further across Morgan Gibbs-White's own run so they can play this little 1-2 and open
06:10up this pocket of space. You can see from the body language of the left back that because
06:13Garner has come all the way up to fill this space. I've got no idea where Cole Palmer
06:17is in all this, by the way, because he's there. He can't then really commit to anything in
06:22the middle because he's got to keep an eye on that. And that means Emile Smith-Rowe,
06:25again, remember, the left winger, can now run happily between this centre back, because
06:30he's none of his business, and the right back who has other things to worry about. Gibbs-White
06:34now controls it really well and drives forward because it is about having the physical profile
06:39to play this brand of football, not just by being a clever nerd and moving around into
06:44different positions. He goes past his marker and rolls the ball back to Smith-Rowe who
06:48is now in the right hand half space. Can I stress again, he was playing on the left wing.
06:54This gives Emile Smith-Rowe an embarrassment of riches for who gets to finish this move
06:59off. And oh, look, there he is. Oh, there's Cole Palmer, the right winger in this equation.
07:03He was just hanging out unmarked on the left-hand side, because of course he was. And what is
07:08so impressive about this goal, possibly even more than the movement required to create
07:13it, is that if you look at it here, I think all three of these passes lead to a goal.
07:18If he gets it back to Gibbs-White, he taps it in. I think the cut back to Gordon is a
07:21guaranteed goal. And if he can get it all the way across to Cole Palmer, which he does,
07:26that's a tap in as well. You don't see that. You never see that. The third goal is exactly
07:33the same, just a smaller, less eye-catching version of it. These are the starting positions
07:37of all the players in this move. They get it to here, Harvey Elliott, who now feels
07:41like the centre forward in this equation because he's the central attacking threat, pulls everybody
07:46out of the way. The cut back is to Cameron Archer, the actual centre forward, and he
07:50lashes it home. And as for the first goal in this game, right, it's just a header in
07:55the box from across. The centre forward heads it, and the right winger crosses it. So you'd
07:59think you can't really infer anything clever about that, can you? Well, Morgan Gibbs-White
08:06is the man who heads it, and Morgan Gibbs-White is tops 5-6. As Cole Palmer gets the ball
08:14ready to whip it into the box, there is not a single centre forward in there. You could
08:19almost see the, like, Looney Tunes-style question marks appearing above the heads of the defenders.
08:25But like everything else, this is deliberate and intelligent movement. Like, Anthony Gordon's
08:29come all the way out here. He's never going to score a header from there, but he is stretching
08:34the defence. Emile Smith-Rowe is actually staying on the left-hand side, not drifting
08:37into the centre. He's not going to be able to do anything out there except stretch the
08:41defence. And because you've got these enormous gaps now between these three defenders, Morgan
08:46Gibbs-White just spots where to run, Cole Palmer drops the ball in that space, and he
08:52jumps and wins the header, despite his height. That's the full-back there, by the way, who
08:57has to come across and try and challenge for that ball. Just look that up, right? He's
09:00just shy of six foot. He's got nearly half a foot on Morgan Gibbs-White, and such is
09:07the movement from this England team, and their understanding of space, coached into them,
09:12that doesn't matter. And as for what are they like off the ball, well, England missed a penalty
09:17in this game that they won as a result of this level of pressure against their opponents.
09:22They forced them back onto their own goal line. They press in numbers. They press collectively.
09:28They press structurally as well. They do everything England did not do at the proper Euros.
09:34So this does beg the question of just, like, why? Like, why can an England side at one level
09:40be so adventurous, be so dynamic, be so energetic, be so intelligent, be so dangerous and fluid and
09:47exciting to watch? And then you take the step up to the senior team, and they're two-dimensional.
09:53They're quite negative. They're predictable. They're all that stuff that we just had to sit
09:57through at the Euros. And the answer to that question is the same reason why I think Lee
10:04Carsley should get the job full-time. The reason you see such a difference between these two levels
10:12of the national side is because this crop of under-21 players represents the very leading
10:18edge of a complete overhaul the FA made to its entire youth development system dating back to
10:24about 2010. You may remember that was the year England were humiliated by Germany at the World
10:31Cup, but what people don't tend to remember is that 12 months prior Germany humiliated England
10:36again in the final of that tournament, and a huge number of the players from that team went
10:42immediately into the senior side. Manuel Neuer, Mesut Ozil, Sami Khedira, they started both the final
10:49and the World Cup game, and there were several other members of that youth side in the German
10:53squad. And this was the wake-up call the FA needed to just completely tear up the rulebook about how
10:59they were developing players from youth level all the way to the senior team and start again
11:04in a way that reflected modern football. And that project, if you haven't heard of it, is called
11:09England DNA. Dan Ashworth was partly behind it, he's now at Man United, Gareth Southgate was
11:14involved, loads of other people, basically just looking at how football was changing and how
11:19England could develop the players that could adapt to that change over time. If you google it, it's on
11:24the FA website, you can go and download the whole original presentation they did like 13 or 14 years
11:29ago. It talks about how players should be as good in possession as they are out of possession, how
11:34they should understand space and changes in game state, how they should be positionally flexible,
11:39there should be multiple things they're good at, they should be more well-rounded instead of just
11:43being good at crossing or good at heading or good at passing. It talks about high-pressing, it talks
11:48about counter-pressing, it talks about transitions, both winning the ball and losing it, and how
11:53players need to be able to read the game themselves and best exploit and defend those situations. And
11:59what does that sound exactly like to you, that England under-21 team? Favourite part about all
12:06of this, right, is it literally says in the presentation, this is not an overnight fix,
12:10we've been neglecting this, things are going to get worse before they get better, but maybe in about
12:1510 years you'll start to see this bearing fruit. And what happened? England got dumped out of the
12:21group stages at the next World Cup without winning a game. That was bad. Then got dumped out of the
12:25Euros by Iceland, which was somehow even worse. But then, 11 years after this proposal got approved,
12:33this England under-21 team, full of players who would come through academies with that England
12:39DNA model, went to a European Championship, beat every single team, played some of the most flexible,
12:45dynamic, exciting football you've ever seen, didn't concede a goal, and won the whole tournament.
12:52Now don't get me wrong, I'm not expecting England to turn up against Iceland and Finland, and in the
12:56first game Lee Carsley's got them playing this mind-bending Carls ball that's going to make
13:00everybody fall in love with football all over again. But I'll say this, right, Lee Carsley
13:05isn't a player who's come through the England DNA programme, but he is one of the first coaches.
13:12Like Southgate helped set it up, yes, but he was removed from that fairly early on to go manage
13:17the national side. Carsley, on the other hand, has worked with these players at different levels. He is
13:24as much a product of this system as any of these footballers are. And I know, I know, whenever the
13:30England manager's job comes up, everybody's like, oh, get Ancelotti in, get Klopp in, get Guardiola in.
13:35They're brilliant managers, and they are, but international football is not club football.
13:42It's a very different thing. You can't go and buy a profile to make a team work. You constantly
13:48have to know what you have at your disposal and get the most out of them. You constantly need to
13:53be balancing bringing players through for the next tournament, whilst also having dependable stars.
13:59It's really, really different. And I don't know if you noticed this, but the best team at the last
14:03European Championships was Spain, and they had in charge their former under-21 coach who had worked
14:10with a lot of those players before. And I'd say this, right, if you're the kind of person who's
14:15found watching England under Southgate to be very tactically limited, very unambitious, very sort of
14:21two-dimensional, that's a product of what national football is. But Carsley's England,
14:27no guarantees it would go any further in tournaments or do any better, but it certainly
14:31would not look like that. Anyway, I'm going to stop now before I inevitably put the kiss of death
14:35on every single one of them. So if you have enjoyed this video, please do consider subscribing to us
14:40here on 442. We have got loads more Premier League stuff coming, and I promise to make the
14:45international break at least fairly interesting. So that little button there, that is your friend,
14:50and so could I, to be. You get me on all the social medias, at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y,
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15:04please do pick that up. It's a good magazine time. And for those of you who have made it
15:08all the way to the end of this video, first off, thank you ever so much. It may be too late
15:13by the time you watch this, but if you have seen all the, I'm doing the Great North Run,
15:17and I have no legs or heart or lungs, and all that stuff, it's Sunday. It's the Sunday after
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15:35We've hit like three and a half grand before I even started. Might get to about four by the
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15:44yet and you have got a couple of quid, the link will be in the comments somewhere. But just,
15:49just know, I am incredibly nervous. It's going to really, really suck for me, but when the burn
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16:00does push me through. And I mean that genuinely. That is what will keep me going. So thanks.
16:06But yes, until next time, comments are welcome. Please subscribe. This was 442. This is Lee
16:10Carsey's England. I am excited to see it if nobody else is. And yeah, I'll see you after
16:16the Finland game. And after the run. Oh God. Bye.