HELSINKI — Waiting for Pep. The proposed title of a farce based on England’s post Gareth Southgate period. It deals entirely with the media-manager interface exploring the oddity of an interim coach who knows the truth of his situation but does not want to tell, or is sworn not to, and reporters who suspect they know the reality but cannot say with certainty.
And in the middle of all this is a group of players, annexed from the real business of football at this stage of the season, their clubs, being asked to play for their country in a series of sub-optimal encounters in a competition of questionable merit. Shakespeare would have a ton of fun with this for it touches on so much of human life: kingship, duty, power, desire, doubts and insecurities.
Poor Lee Carsley. Whatever responsibilities he volunteered to undertake with the national team, he would not have anticipated a game of cat and mouse with the media. He would have been better prepared having done a season on Strictly Come Dancing, where quick feet and changes of direction are meat and drink to participants.
The “would-Lee-wouldn’t-he” dynamic was in play from the very first press conference. When the Football Association announced Carsley as interim coach they presumed that what was said on the tin would be taken at face value. It might have been had the reporter class rolled off an AI production line. The human variety is by trade curious and minded to go off-piste. So the question of Carsley wanting the job permanently was a natural one to ask.
The reply rolled out felt prepared. He had been tasked with looking after the team for six matches and that is what he would be doing. The focus was on preparing the team during a three-month period to allow his employers at the FA to progress the search for a full-time coach. All good at the point. And then a ball was kicked.
Against Ireland in Dublin we were watching a Carsley team. It started well, with two goals in the first half, one of them by the returning Jack Grealish, which was enough to ruin the FA schema. Having been jettisoned by Southgate, the return of Grealish to the pitch and the scoresheet carried its own momentum, as did the selection of Angel Gomes, who did so well in the second match at home to Finland and again in the return match on Sunday.
Carsley’s positive start had now made him a candidate, or at least substantiated the question that was asked before a ball was kicked. And it would be asked again and again, requiring Carsley to dance in ever decreasing circles until, eventually, in Helsinki the sequins popped from his waistcoat.
He told broadcasters that the England job was one for a world-class coach with a proven track record, seemingly ruling himself out. He then told the official post-match conference that he had not ruled himself out and that what he was really trying to say was the job itself was world class, one of the top coaching positions in the game, and yes, since he was doing the job, he assumed he was under consideration.
And this after he had told reporters before the trip to Finland that he was looking forward to returning to his position as under-21 coach. Indeed the defeat against Greece last Thursday led to reports that he didn’t want the job. He had, we were told, revealed to some squad members that he was not interested in the job full time. It was clear following the victory in Helsinki that Carsley hardly knew which way was up. And for this the blame was not his alone.
The FA’s silence on the matter has exposed Carsley in a way he never imagined. Perhaps this was all part of the audition, leaving him at the mercy of an avaricious media to see how he coped with the “impossible job”. As well as skewering the temporary gaffer, unintentionally or otherwise, the uncertainty necessarily invites conjecture. Namely, if not Carsley then who?
Carsley is the continuity candidate. He has come through the FA system. The players love him. They enjoy the low-key, lads-together vibe he has created along with the new coaching staff brought up from the under-21s of Ashley Cole and Joleon Lescott.
There are other English coaches of varying merit. Currently resting Graham Potter. Newcastle’s Eddie Howe has been mentioned. Of the foreign possibilities Thomas Tuchel is twiddling his thumbs, and then there is the dream candidate, Pep Guardiola, seemingly at a crossroads with Manchester City fighting an “existential” battle against the Premier League in which the soul of the game is said to be at stake.
City’s director of football and Guardiola confidante, Txiki Bergiristain, has announced his departure at the season’s end. Is Guardiola minded to follow? If so, the England job, the impossible job, would appear the perfect fit for the greatest coach of the age, who has won all there is to win in club football.
You could see how the challenge of solving the vexing England puzzle would appeal, and though the FA might not be willing to meet his £20m annual salary, there is always a compromise to be reached between willing parties. Somebody at the FA knows what’s going on. Now would be a good time to explain their working out before the Carsley merry-go-round winds up again next month for the final Nations League fixtures.
Failure to do so will trigger a repeat of the same indigestible soup served in Helsinki, and with a game to win in Greece to avoid the unwanted play-offs next year, not to mention readiness for World Cup qualifying in March, it is incumbent on Carsley’s employers at the FA to bail out both him and us.
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