Greece makes history when England's attack experiment fails

LONDON – On the bright side, Lee Carsley now has a ready-made answer the next time he's asked whether all of England's best young attackers fit in the same team.

The downside for the interim manager is that once he finds out the answer, it may have hurt his prospects for a full-time job. A team loaded with Bukayo Saka, Jude Bellingham, Phil Foden, Cole Palmer and Anthony Gordon were shocked 2-1 by Greece in the UEFA Nations League on Thursday.

Carsley's ultra-attacking experiment had long since been abandoned when Vangelis Pavlidis scored the winner in stoppage time, sending the Greeks' corner into a sea of ​​blue and white chaos at Wembley. In reality, they were by far the better team and the fact that they had the ball in the net five times was testament to their superiority.

It was fortunate for Carsley that the offside flag only counted for two and a night that threatened to end in utter humiliation remained simply embarrassing.

“I thought we didn't start the game great and often thought we were the second best players,” Carsley said. “We tried something different with the formation and the areas of the field we wanted to penetrate.”

“We never really gave ourselves a chance to see whether it was the right or wrong decision.

“If you look at the result and how the game went, it was obviously a challenging evening for us. Greece played well. I thought they were highly motivated as expected and were the second best tonight.”

With Harry Kane sidelined with a thigh problem, Carsley threw caution to the wind. Perhaps he got tired of the argument over whether Bellingham, Foden or Palmer should play as England's number 10 and decided to pick them all. Saka and Gordon were deployed on the wings, but instead of a frantic attacking game they delivered a tactical mishmash.

With no balance and no discernible pattern, Greece was able to defend itself relatively easily.

A Bellingham attempt that tipped over the crossbar in the second minute was England's only shot on goal until Bellingham appeared again on the edge of the box and equalized in the 87th minute.

In the intervening 85 minutes, the most accurate attempt by an Englishman came when a paper plane thrown from the crowd hit Greek captain Anastasios Bakasetas as he made another rapid forward run. The Greeks racing forward were the topics of the evening. Too often Declan Rice had to try and put out fires while Bellingham, Foden and Palmer were trapped in the field.

Palmer – who was named England's player of the year this week despite playing just 144 minutes at the Euros – stood so deep that he collected his first two passes from centre-back Levi Colwill. He obviously had permission to march forward, but that meant he was caught in a difficult middle ground, never really knowing which direction to go.

“With the players we have, sometimes we have to be bold with our systems and be creative,” Carsley said.

“I thought it was important to try something different. It was a case of, let's try something different, and I'm happy to take the blame for that. It was entirely my idea. I thought long and hard about what it might look like, how it might build, and what it might feel like. It's something that didn't materialize tonight.

With Trent Alexander-Arnold allowed to move into the middle at right-back, Foden, Bellingham and Palmer were all lost in the midfield fray. When England tried to attack there were too many and too few when asked to defend. There was a warning after just five minutes when a quick counterattack by Greece left England two on two on the defensive. Pavlidis shot wide but later made up for it with two well-taken goals.

Carsley was eventually forced into a substitution when Saka went off injured almost immediately after half-time. Gordon and Foden followed not long after, but by this point Greece had realized that a historic result was on the cards and were in no mood to miss the opportunity.

It looked like Bellingham's late goal had robbed them of the win they deserved, but Pavlidis had other ideas. His 94th-minute goal gave Greece their first ever win over England, while also making history as the lowest-ranked team to win a competitive match on English soil.

At 48th place in the FIFA rankings, they are just ahead of Costa Rica and Chile.

England travel to Finland next and it's back to the drawing board for Carsley. Perhaps the same now applies to the FA as they continue their search for a new permanent manager.

Aside from singing the national anthem, the popular opinion was that Carsley had boosted his prospects with wins over the Republic of Ireland and Finland in the last international break.

However, there is little doubt that the defeat to Greece – a team that failed to qualify for the European Championships last summer – is a major setback. The result was poor, the performance was worse and the debate over whether England's attacking stars can play together is finally settled.