A spate of senior player losses has affected caretaker England manager Lee Carsley’s plans for his final two games in charge this week.
Experienced internationals Declan Rice, Bukayo Saka, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Phil Foden and Jack Grealish are among eight players who have withdrawn, many citing injuries, from the third international break of a busy season.
Some reports have cited pressure from clubs over the number of abandonments, with Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola criticizing Grealish’s initial call-up for the Nations League matches against Greece and the Republic of Ireland.
And for players and fans, these two games represent a strange period of “limbo” before new coach Thomas Tuchel takes over in January.
The five substitutes called up by Carsley, including Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers and Everton’s Jarrad Brathwaite, both 22, have reduced the team’s average age to 25 years and four months, including five non-international players.
The England Euro 2024 team led by former coach Gareth Southgate had an average age of 26.1 years, the third youngest in the tournament, behind Turkey (25.8) and the Czech Republic (25.3).
Carsley said he would put “his own stamp” on the England team during his tenure as caretaker manager and “renew” it with each meeting. It certainly has.
He has once again turned to ‘England path’ players he knows well from his time as under-21 coach, and even with Cole Palmer and Levi Colwill leaving, there are still eight players from his Euro 2023 squad that beat Spain 1- 0 in the end.
However, this is one of the least experienced teams in recent history, with Harry Kane (100) and Kyle Walker (95) accounting for almost half of the entire team’s 400 caps. England’s high-profile retirements total 240 caps between them.
England need to win these two games to gain automatic promotion to the top tier of the Nations League and ensure Tuchel’s first game is not a Nations League play-off rather than a World Cup qualifier. which he claims to have planned.
Tuchel will not be in Greece and Carsley said the German has had no influence over the team selection for this match and that he “is very respectful” of the work Carsley and his staff are doing.
Ultimately, Carsley’s lasting impact could accelerate the next generation of English stars faster than expected.
All this makes for an interesting ‘audition’ for some players on this team… BBC Sport takes a look.
