England: What’s next for Lee Carsley if the False Nine Greece experiment fails?

England started with a false nine experiment, finished with the most classic English formation – and lost – on a night that was damaging to Lee Carsley’s career prospects.

Some England fans had called for former coach Gareth Southgate to field more attacking players at Euro 2024 – and even drop striker Harry Kane.

Even further back, England lamented their inability to effectively combine the likes of Steven Gerrard, Paul Scholes and Frank Lampard into one team.

Those fans wanting sweeping changes in this new post-Southgate era were granted against Greece at Wembley on Thursday, with Kane ruled out due to a minor injury.

Carsley did not name a recognized striker from the start – which is probably a first for the Three Lions – with false nines of Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka and Anthony Gordon on the wings – and Cole Palmer in midfield.

“There are two options, aren’t there?” former England goalkeeper Paul Robinson previously said on BBC Radio 5 Live.

“Either we call him a genius or we demand that strikers Ollie Watkins or Dominic Solanke be substituted. He does it his way.”

No one is calling Carsley a genius after this loss.

Greece, at 48th, was the lowest-ranked team to beat England in a competitive away game since the FIFA world rankings were created in 1992.

Watkins came on after 60 minutes – and Solanke followed 12 minutes later – as England ended up playing 4-4-2.

But they suffered a shock 2-1 defeat when Vangelis Pavlidis scored a brace. With three minutes left it looked as if Bellingham had salvaged a point from Greece’s stoppage-time winner.

“We tried something different and tried to overload the midfield,” Carsley said. “We tried it for 20 minutes yesterday, experimenting and were disappointed that it didn’t work.

“It is unrealistic to expect too much and we have to try again. All the goals came from mistakes, which is disappointing.”

Former England defender Lee Dixon said on ITV: “We were looking forward to a fresh start here but it has come back to bite them.”

“It was definitely the right thing to try something in this game, but trying something just because everyone says you should is not the right thing to do.”