How Lee Carsley manoeuvred himself into pole position to become England manager

Six months after turning down the Republic of Ireland, Lee Carsley finds himself in the position of potentially facing his former adopted country as interim boss of England’s senior team.

Carsley is emerging as a genuine option to take charge for England’s Nations League opener against the Republic in September, and it is a moment many will feel has been coming.

After Gareth Southgate’s decision to step down from the senior team, Carsley is expected to be on the shortlist to replace him - alongside the likes of Eddie Howe, Graham Potter and Mauricio Pochettino.

His candidacy is not the surprise many claim, and insiders at the Football Association will argue that this is the role he has been preparing for throughout his coaching career.

Carsley’s association with the English FA stretches back to 2015, when he worked with the under-19s, and his trajectory has earned him many admirers along the way.

Like Spain’s Luis de la Fuente, who lifted this year’s European Championship with Spain, Carsley has worked his way up from the junior levels to the under-21s.

Last year, Carsley’s England won that age group’s European Championship, beating Spain with a team that included Cole Palmer, Anthony Gordon and Levi Colwill.

He is fully supportive of the pathway and professional development phase from the under-21s to the first-team, a stance that will always earn the FA’s approval.

It will probably not do him any harm that he once worked in Manchester City’s academy, too.

A former midfielder, Carsley made his name at Derby County, under Jim Smith, as a reliable and dedicated professional. He was also known to be a very strong-willed, no-nonsense character.

Former team-mates recall that when Carsley was told in pre-season that he would be playing at right-back, within days he had knocked on Smith’s office door and insisted he wanted to play centre-midfield, and weeks later he made it his position.

A Republic of Ireland international with 40 caps, he was the player who did the ugly stuff that went under the radar.

He spent the majority of his career with Everton, where he started studying for his coaching badges along with team-mate Alan Stubbs.

His first job was at Coventry City, another club he played for, coaching the under-18s. Since then, he has built a solid career in development while coaching at Brentford and Manchester City.

He had a spell in 2017 at Birmingham as the under-23s coach, including a period as caretaker of the senior team when then manager Harry Redknapp was sacked.

International managerial experience

In September 2020, he was confirmed as England’s under-20s head coach and it was then that his career started to gather momentum.

The Republic of Ireland courted him for months after the dismissal of Stephen Kenny last November, and at one point it appeared inevitable that Carsley would take the job.

But he pulled out the running and, perhaps, the prospect of eventually succeeding Southgate was a contributing factor.

Carsley’s appointment as interim manager, as expected, will buy England – and possibly him – time.

After all, Southgate reluctantly took over the senior team from Sam Allardyce and secured two wins and two draws from his first four matches.

He was eventually named permanent manager and, nearly eight years later, stepped down after reaching a World Cup semi-final in 2018, a Euros final in 2020, the World Cup quarter-final and a second successive Euros final. History may be about to repeat itself with Carsley at the helm.