Lee Carsley deflected the credit for England’s 2-0 win against the Republic of Ireland on to the players as he started his interim tenure with an impressive victory in Dublin.
Carsley succeeded Gareth Southgate on a temporary basis but he is very much in the running to claim the job on a full-time basis and the manner of this afternoon’s performance – particularly in the first half – meant his audition got off to a good start.
The three points saw England take an early lead in Nations League B, Group 2 with a home game against Finland next up on Tuesday.
Carsley told ITV Sport: “I thought it was good in parts. You’ve seen some of the things we’ve tried to do.
“The lads have to take a lot of credit, all of the credit. I think we’ve showed we’ve got some real talent and we can be really pleased with the clean sheet as well.”
Declan Rice, who played three friendlies for Ireland before switching allegiance to England, and former Republic Under-21 star Jack Grealish got the goals for England to complete a miserable day for the home supporters.
“I thought they [Rice and Grealish] took their goals really well,” added Carsley. “Really well-worked moves and brilliant finishes. I think, moving forward, they can both add a lot more goals to their game.
“Jack definitely doesn’t have anything to prove to us, we can see his quality, but today will have done him the world of good, getting another goal for England and hopefully he can continue that form.”
Perfect start to our Nations League campaign away from home 🙌 pic.twitter.com/hXdFkfVoZR
— Harry Kane (@HKane) September 7, 2024
England’s first-half dominance waned after the break without Ireland ever looking like they would get back into the game.
Carsley said: “I think you’ve got to give Ireland credit, they are very resilient, they closed the gaps and our space maybe became a bit wider [in the second half].
“We found it a little bit more difficult to get through them but at 2-0 we were quite comfortable.”
It was also a first game in the opposing dugout for new Ireland boss Heimir Hallgrimsson, who had an afternoon to forget.
“England had a good game today and I’m not afraid to say that we were the second best,” the Icelander told RTE. “I think it showed that England were coming back from a good Euros and the players behaved in a way where they thought everything they tried would succeed. Compared to us, we were a little bit more passive and didn’t anticipate.
“We had chances to do better on occasions. What we can take from this game is that it was a good team that we played against and they exposed a lot of our weaknesses, and we can learn from that. We can improve in the future, and that is my job.”
