1 week Ago By Dan Kilpatrick
Lee Carsley believes England ’s 3-0 win over Greece demonstrated that they have “outstanding talents” outside of their big-name players. England took control of their Nations League group with a comfortable win in Athens , clinched by Ollie Watkins, a Odysseas Vlachodimos own goal and Curtis Jones. In his penultimate match as interim head coach, Carsley dropped Harry Kane , with Watkins leading the line , following the captain’s criticism of some of his team-mates for withdrawing from the squad on the eve of the game.
Carsley says the victory, which ensures England will be promoted back to the top-tier of the Nations League if they beat the Republic of Ireland at Wembley on Sunday, underlined their depth. “It represents that we're moving in the right direction. We won't get carried away, we're looking forward to a big game on Sunday at Wembley,” Carsley told ITV Sport.
“It's just important that the players played to their strengths. We've got a lot of outstanding talents. We concentrated on the ones that were here.
We spoke yesterday about players getting opportunities and we've seen that tonight.” Debutant Jones made it 3-0 with an impudent back-heeled flick, while Carsley also handed debuts to Newcastle left-back Lewis Hall and Aston Villa’s Morgan Rogers in the second half. “It's not surprising, Curtis is an outstanding player,” he said of the Liverpool midfielder’s goal.
“I thought he played really well today, even without his goal - it was an excellent performance. I'm delighted for him. “People were speaking about the inexperience within the squad but these players playing week-in-week-out in the Premier League are at a really high level.
“Lewis, it's testament to Newcastle and himself that he's able to come on in an atmosphere like that and perform the way he did. "Same with Morgan Rogers, he's been really good at Villa. He could probably have been in the squad a little bit sooner but it was important we took our time with him because hopefully he'll be here for a while.
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