Despite England's humiliating loss to Greece at Wembley, interim manager Lee Carsley remains confident that his aggressive playing style will ultimately lead to more victories than defeats.
Gareth Southgate’s temporary successor began his reign with September wins against the Republic of Ireland and Finland, but things went dramatically awry in Thursday’s Nations League clash.
England started with five attackers but no out-and-out striker in the absence of injured Harry Kane, with that system failing to get the best out of the side in possession and leaving them open without it.
Greece capitalised on that meek, incoherent display, with Vangelis Pavlidis striking in stoppage time – his second of the night – shortly after Jude Bellingham had levelled to seal a 2-1 triumph.
Carsley made the eye-catching admission after the loss that they only tried the system for 20 minutes in training on the eve of the game, but his belief in his attacking principles remain unmoved.
“My position and my understanding of coaching, I want to attack,” he said.
“I want to attack – you’ve seen the teams play (at Under-21s level). It’s something that’s really important to me and with that you do lose games. You do lose some games.
“It’s not ideal, of course it’s not, but with that mentality I’ve found that you definitely win more games than not.
“It’s very disappointing tonight but nothing changes in terms of the way that I see the game. It’s not affected how I see it.”
On the approach to fill the side with attacking talent without a striker, Carsley continued: “I think it’s a case of trying something different.
“The expectancy is that we just pick a team that beat Greece comfortably at Wembley. You’ve got to take into consideration the opposition are highly motivated and try and stop you.
“I don’t think (this approach is) something that you should rule out. At times we have to be creative, especially with the players that we’ve got, but, yeah, there was obviously a lot of challenges tonight.”
Carsley acknowledged the need for balance that England sorely lacked against a Greek side fuelled by the pain of the sudden death of friend and team-mate George Baldock aged 31.
Their first win in this fixture put them three points clear at the top of Group B2 and left England in desperate need of a return to winning ways in Finland.
“I thought all of the goals were poor, even our goal in terms of the mistakes,” Carsley said.
“It was a great finish by Jude, but you look at our goals and the manner in which we concede is disappointing because we know the quality that we’ve got. You expect better, but I thought that too often tonight we were second best.
“We spoke in there (in the dressing room) about setbacks and how you respond to that. It’ll be a good test for us now going over to Finland and a game I’m really looking forward to.”
Carsley has a lot to mull over ahead of Sunday’s match against winless Finland, saying “we’ll definitely be freshening up the team for the next game”.
Bukayo Saka looks a doubt for the trip to Helsinki after limping off against Greece, but Kane and Jack Grealish could feature after missing Thursday’s match with knocks.
“I didn’t think we had as much control of the game as we have in the last two games, bearing in mind that’s the third game that we’ve done,” Carsley added.
“I’m really reluctant on getting too down on the players. I’ve still got a lot of belief in that squad. I think they’re an outstanding squad and hopefully respond well in the next game.”
