Carsley envisages 'creative' plan to combine star trio

England boss wants to play Palmer, Foden and Bellingham

- MIGUEL DELANEY

Lee Carsley believes England can get all of Jude Bellingham, Cole Palmer and Phil Foden into the same team if they are “creative”. While the interim manager suggested that the nature of next week’s international matches means it would be unlikely he will play the trio together for long, he has been trying to come up with an idea for it.

Carsley revealed that a recent Uefa conference between head coaches saw his peers enthuse about England’s immense strength in depth, but that the discussions also made him realise the country was still “chasing”, not leading. The manager even stated that his peers were talking to him as if England’s abundance of options could be an issue, but he insisted it’s “a nice problem to have”. The potential use of Bellingham, Palmer and Foden only illustrates that, ahead of Nations League fixtures at home to Greece then away to Finland.

“You’d try and find a way of getting them into the team,” Carsley said. “We’ve got to be creative… if they are all playing well and they all earn that place in the team. I think that’s important as well.

“With the period of the season we are in, I can probably justify why we wouldn’t start all three of them at the same time in terms of the amount of games that they’re playing, what they are going back to and what they have come from. And some of the stages they are at in terms of potentially just coming back from injury or not had that many minutes. We just need to find the balance.