Interim manager Lee Carsley claims he has a plan to fit Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer into the same England team.
The emergence of 22-year-old Palmer as one of the country’s most in-form players of the past 18 months has left Carsley with the unenviable challenge of fitting together three world-leading players who prefer to play in the same position.
Manchester City’s Foden and Real Madrid’s Bellingham were respectively the Premier League and La Liga player of the year last season playing as the No 10, the position behind the striker.
This week, Palmer added to his Premier League young player of the year accolade by being named England’s young player of the year, ahead of Bellingham and Bukayo Saka, in an award voted for by the public. Palmer played off the right wing last season but has featured more centrally for Chelsea this season, from where he has scored six goals in seven Premier League games.
One of the criticisms of former England manager Gareth Southgate at Euro 2024 was that he failed to get the best out of Foden, playing him on the left wing, preferring Bellingham as the central player, the two struggling the gel together.
Asked about fitting all three into the same starting line-up, Carsley replied, “I’ve definitely got a plan in place. The beauty of this job is you get a lot of time to think. In between driving from game to game you are constantly thinking about combinations, relationships.”
Carsley is confident Palmer can handle the pressure being heaped upon him – but is mindful that the player is still young and should be handled with care.
Palmer has been a sensation since moving to Chelsea from Manchester City in a £42.5m deal in summer 2023. But he has still only played one full season in the Premier League, and though he featured in five games at Euro 2024 and scored in the final, he did not start one of them.
“He’s a player that whatever you throw at Cole he deals with,” Carsley said.
“But that shouldn’t give us the right to keep putting pressure on him and hyping him up.
“Ultimately, he’s still a young player, he’s still got a lot of improving to do, even though he’s at an incredible limit at the moment, I still think he can get better. With all of the young players we have to make sure we look after them, make sure we’re mindful of what they are going through.
“Not only on the pitch but the challenges they have off the pitch as well. A lot of these situations they’re in are life changing, not only for themselves but for their families. Supporting them is a big thing. But I’ve definitely got no worries about Cole.”
England’s potential XI
Stones unfazed by City chaos
Defender John Stones insists he is not worried about all the off-field chaos engulfing Manchester City.
The sheer extent to which City is at war with the Premier League was revealed this week when both sides tried to claim victory in their tribunal to decide whether rules on Associated Party Transactions are legal.
City further aggravated the situation by writing to all 19 Premier League clubs on Monday night criticising the Premier League for “misleading” clubs about the ruling and making thinly-veiled threats of further legal action.
It all comes amid the backdrop of the on-going hearing in front of an independent three-person panel who will rule on the Premier League’s 115 charges against its reigning champions.
The Premier League alleges that City inflated payments from sponsors under the same Abu Dhabi ownership group and concealed payments.
If found to be in breach of the majority of the more serious charges, City face expulsion from the Premier League.
But Stones, set to start for England in a Nations League game against Greece on Thursday, said: “The honest truth is no, it doesn’t worry me. I am very much someone [where] if I cannot control it I don’t give it the headspace or attention. That might seem a bit wrong in some ways, but that is how I deal with it.
“At the end of the day, it is out of my hands and I put a lot of trust in the club and the people around me are good. I think I have quite a simple mindset towards things that I can control and what I can affect, and I don’t think it has done too bad so far or maybe I haven’t got the capacity to deal with all those things so I choose to put them to one side.”
Stones, meanwhile, admitted it is “frustrating” he has struggled to get into City’s team this season.
“It’s always frustrating when you want to play,” he said. “I think that’s football. Obviously, coming back later than the majority of the squad after the Euros, the team being in good form, [there are] a lot of factors.”
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