Key events
31 min Heimur? He has a problem. Ireland are parking the bus, playing 5-4-1 when they don’t have the ball, and England are still driving past them.
30 min Grealish was catching the eye with his energy and creativity even before the goal. But he could be Player of the Match here and it might not do him much good. As a No 10, he would still be stuck behind Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden in the queue. (Not to mention Cole Palmer.) And as a No 11, he would still be behind Gordon.
26 min It was a gorgeous team goal – all first-time passes, Rice to Mainoo to Rice to Saka to Rice to Grealish, who finished crisply from 12 yards, And did celebrate. The snakes are indeed back.
GOAL! Ireland 0-2 England (Grealish 26)
You couldn’t make it up!
22 min Mainoo adds a lovely turn to his England highlights reel. Then Ireland manage to get forward but can’t do more than that as Kane goes deep to defend and picks up a foul.
20 min The game calms down a bit as England knock the ball around. Mainoo plays a lovely diagonal ball to Rice. Nothing comes of it, but Michael Carrick would have been proud of it.
“Perhaps,” says David Wall, “Carsley should have said that he still finds it odd whenever he hears the anthem in honour of ‘the King’ so would be staying silent out of respect for the late Queen. Not only would it have saved all the fuss (and boredom) of that ‘debate’ but it would have got certain newspapers insisting he gets the job full-time, regardless of results. Rookie error.”
17 min Lee Carsley said he’d picked “an attacking team, very attacking” and so far they have lived up to that. Early days, of course – early minutes, in fact.
15 min This game is end-to-end. England storm forward again with Rice leading the charge. Kane gets another shot in, saved this time by Kelleher.
13 min Ireland had just had a chance themselves, with the talented Szmodics drawing a save from Pickford. But then Alexander-Arnold went long and found Gordon, beautifully. He was one on one with the keeper and messed up the shot but the ball came loose. Kane had a go too, blocked, and then Rice was there, near the penalty spot, to thump the ball into the top of the net.
GOAL! Ireland 0-1 England (Rice 11)
Declan Rice with a resounding strike! And he calmly refuses to celebrate.
9 min Alexander-Arnold and Grealish are beginning to run the show between them, one with vision, the other with quick flicks.
7 min Chance for England! Gordon puts a cross in, just too high, but it’s picked up on the right by Alexander-Arnold, whose cross is inch-perfect. Kane is there to get the header in but can’t keep it down. This, by the way, is his 99th game for England.
5 min Grealish isn’t on the left, he’s the No 10, with the speedier Gordon on the left wing… where Gordon is now, shoving Coleman over.
3 min Chance for Ireland! Molumby, ghosting in to meet a flick-on from the corner, has a free header at the far post, but he can only send it over the bar.
3 min Ireland come forward from the free kick and Ogbene, on the right wing, wins a corner with his energy.
2 min The early signs are that Ireland are playing five at the back and England are looking to play three, with Trent Alexander-Arnold slipping into midfield. He does that now and pings a long diagonal to Anthony Gordon, who is offside.
1 min Kobbie Mainoo gets the ball rolling and England go back to Jordan Pickford as Ireland press hard.
Now for the anthems. God Save the King rings out. The players sing it, Rice included; Carsley doesn’t – clearly a man of his word.
The Lansdowne Road crowd boo it heartily, then sing their own anthem, strikingly well. Heimur Hallgrímsson doesn’t join in either. It’s up to the individual.
“This Irish team need but one thing,” says Stephen G. “Shane Long to take over so we can go back to playing route one football, and qualifying for tournaments again. LONGBALL!!!”
The Irish president (and poet), Michael D Higgins, is in the house. Walking iwith two sticks, he is introduced to the England players. He gives Grealish and Rice a warmer welcome than those banner-wielders.
There’s a banner in the crowd aimed at Declan Rice and Jack Grealish, “THE SNAKES,” it says, “ARE BACK.” Oof.
A very attacking team, Carsley says
Lee Carsley has a word with ITV. “The expectancy is high,” he says, while hastening to add that he’s only had three days’ training with the players. “We’ve picked an attacking team, very attacking team.”
Then ITV shows what happened when Carsley took his seat in the dugout. He went to the Irish one.
Some more balls. “In the spirit of Private Eye,” says Andy Flintoff, “maybe we should try to persuade Chris Coleman to take permanent charge, then the style of play would be ‘Colemanball’, and the world would fold in on itself.” Nice one.
And here comes another tart email. “With Jordan Pickford and Anthony Gordon in the XI and John Stones sitting next to Lee Carsley on the bench,” asks Gary Naylor, “do Everton have the most club connections to this Brave New England? If so, there’s a desperate 92 minutes on its way to you right now, culminating in two late goals in the 93rd and 95th to lose the game.” Haha.
“It will be followed by an interview with a bald manager saying that he’s disappointed with the result, nevertheless going on to explain how they were in the game for long periods, but have to cut out the individual errors. He’ll finish by saying that they’re missing a couple of key players but that the squad is good enough to cope with that. [Spoiler – it isn’t].”
Pre-match reading (2)
In case you didn’t click on this at the top of the page … Barney Ronay has been pondering Lee Carsley, as only he can.
The next email contains a drop of vinegar. “In an effort to stop the birth of the appallingly asinine yet inevitable term Carsleyball,” says Paul Griffin, “I am frantically lobbying the FA for Kevin Ball to get the gig, just so pundits can’t refer to his style of play as Ballball.
“Or, perhaps an even better choice to stop these dumb, tired portmanteaux cliches gaining further currency would be to hire long-retired Bournemouth defender Chris Foote. The campaign – or perhaps campaignball – starts here. Or hereball.”
Ha. The players who know Carsley from the U21s call him Cars, so I was on the point of floating Carsball.
“Balance” is the header on the first email. “Looking at England’s three attacking midfielders,” says Mark Beadle, “wouldn’t Saka – Eze – Grealish/Gordon make more sense? Looks a bit unbalanced to me.” Yes, perhaps.
The predicted line-ups I saw this morning got the XI spot-on, so there must have been a clear steer. But they didn’t all agree on where Grealish and Gordon would go. My 4-2-3-1 is just an uneducated guess. It could be a 4-3-3 or 4-1-2-3 with Rice as the sole pivot, Mainoo and Grealish ahead of him, and Saka-Kane-Gordon as the front three. That way, Grealish and Gordon would both get to play on the left. But Eze is such a classy player that it would be surprise not to see him come off the bench.
Pre-match reading (1)
Heimir Hallgrímsson is going up in the world. He’s gone from managing Iceland (currently no. 71 in the Fifa men’s rankings) to Jamaica (59) to Ireland (58). England, by the way, are no.4.
Just in case you don’t know much about Hallgrímsson, here’s Barry to mark your card.
Those teams in full
England (possible 4-2-3-1) Jordan Pickford; Trent Alexander-Arnold, Harry Maguire, Marc Guehi, Levi Colwill; Kobbie Mainoo, Declan Rice; Bukayo Saka, Jack Grealish, Anthony Gordon; Harry Kane.
Subs: Nick Pope, Dean Henderson, Tino Livramento, Rico Lewis, John Stones, Ezri Konsa, Conor Gallagher, Angel Gomes, Eberechi Eze, Morgan Gibbs-White, Jarrod Bowen.
Ireland (possible 4-4-1-1) Caoimhin Kelleher; Seamus Coleman, Dara O’Shea, Nathan Collins, Matt Doherty; Chiedozie Ogbene, Will Smallbone, Jayson Molumby, Robbie Brady; Sammie Szmodics; Adam Idah.
Subs: Mark Travers, Max O’Leary, Callum O’Dowda, Andrew Omobamidele, Alan Browne, Jake O’Brien, Jason Knight, Liam Scales, Kasey McAteer, Callum Robinson, Troy Parrott, Evan Ferguson.
‘Not a fresh start’
Lee Carsley said he didn’t see this as a fresh start, but as a chance to build on England’s progress under Gareth Southgate. And the first XI he has picked fits in with that.
He has left all the brand-new faces on the bench and handed recalls to Harry Maguire and Jack Grealish. He has kept faith with the spine of Southgate’s team – Pickford, Guehi, Rice, Mainoo, Kane – and might have included more of them if they’d been available (in the case of Jude Bellingham) or match-fit (John Stones).
But he has also brought Trent Alexander-Arnold back from the bench and promoted Anthony Gordon and Levi Colwill, both of whom he knows well from the Under-21s. So, a balanced line-up.
England team: Colwill, Grealish and Gordon start
England (possible 4-2-3-1) Jordan Pickford; Trent Alexander-Arnold, Harry Maguire, Marc Guehi, Levi Colwill; Kobbie Mainoo, Declan Rice; Bukayo Saka, Jack Grealish, Anthony Gordon; Harry Kane.
Subs: Nick Pope, Dean Henderson, Tino Livramento, Rico Lewis, John Stones, Ezri Konsa, Conor Gallagher, Angel Gomes, Eberechi Eze, Noni Madueke, Jarrod Bowen, Morgan Gibbs-White.
Ireland team: Coleman and Doherty start
Heimir Hallgrímsson names his first XI and decides he could do with the experience of Seamus Coleman and Matt Doherty.
STARTING XI | Ireland v England
Jayson Molumby makes his first international start since November 2023 whilst Chiedozie Ogbene returns to the starting line-up after his injury 👌
Kick-off is at 5pm, not long to wait now! 🇮🇪💚 pic.twitter.com/HfZdrw0AZ3
— Ireland Football ⚽️🇮🇪 (@IrelandFootball) September 7, 2024
Preamble: under new management
Afternoon everyone and welcome to the post-Southgate era. It was eight years ago this week that the England men’s team last went into a match without a sensitive Gareth pep-talk ringing softly in their ears. On that occasion – Slovakia 0-1 England (Lallana 90+5) – the manager was Sam Allardyce, running the show for the first and last time. This evening in Dublin it’s Lee Carsley, a far less familiar figure and a far more enlightened coach.
Like Southgate, Carsley has been installed as a caretaker while also being a candidate for the job proper. Like Southgate, he has come up through the ranks and has managed England Under-21s. Like Southgate, in fact even more so, he has brought success at the big tournaments. Unlike Southgate, whose strengths lay in changing the culture and persuading the players to enjoy representing England, Carsley is known for constructing teams that are innovative, creative and attacking. And he still managed to win the U21 Euros without conceding a goal.
It will be fascinating to see if he can get a different tune out of a highly talented squad. He has to do without Phil Foden, Jude Bellingham and Cole Palmer – three club superstars who sometimes tread on each other’s toes in internationals – but can still call upon Harry Kane, Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Kobbie Mainoo, Trent Alexander-Arnold, John Stones and Marc Guehi. He has added bright young things from his U21 days such as Angel Gomes, Morgan Gibbs-White, Noni Madueke, Tino Livramento and Levi Colwill. And there could well be a central role for Anthony Gordon, since Kane is the only recognised centre-forward in the squad.
Carsley’s first game with the senior team is against Ireland, the nation he played for 40 times as a defensive midfielder after qualifying through his grandmother. He never sang the Irish anthem then, or the British one when he was managing the U21s, and he is all over today’s papers saying that he is not about to change that policy. Like Allardyce, albeit for very different reasons, he is now in the crosshairs of The Daily Telegraph.
Ireland too have a new boss, Heimir Hallgrímsson. He is an Icelandic dentist, deliciously, but also an experienced manager who has run two national teams – Iceland and Jamaica. He was in joint charge of Iceland in 2016 when they pulled off their famous victory over England, which led to Roy Hodgson’s departure, which led to Allardyce’s arrival, which led to Southgate’s appointment. It’s almost as if there’s a play to be written about all this.
