Lee Carsley ignores Gary Neville warning with new Trent Alexander-Arnold experiment

Gary Neville has previously urged England to be careful about how they use Trent Alexander-Arnold, but interim boss Lee Carsley has opted to ignore the Manchester United legend

England interim boss Lee Carsley has ignored Gary Neville’s warning over mishandling Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Alexander-Arnold is widely seen as being one of the Three Lions’ most talented players. But Carsley’s predeccessor Gareth Southgate struggled to find a place for the Liverpool star within his starting line-up.

Those struggles culminated in Southgate using Alexander-Arnold in an unnatural midfield role at Euro 2024. That experiment failed miserably, with Carsley picking the 26-year-old in his natural right-back position for the defeat to Greece on Thursday.

England’s temporary boss has reversed on that decision for the trip to Finland though, with Alexander-Arnold shifted to left-back. That move flies in the face of advice legendary Manchester United skipper Gary Neville issued during Euro 2024.

“I think it works for now,” he told ITV of Alexander-Arnold playing in midfield. “The only thing I would say is that we could look back in five, six, seven, eight years if we don’t get Trent Alexander-Arnold [playing] international football and regret how we have handled him.

“He is one player that I would describe as world-class at what he does – there’s no doubt about that. He’s unique in terms of his delivery [and] his set-piece play. We’re talking about Trent Alexander-Arnold here.

“No-one ever doubts the fact that he’s special. Really special. And we’ve mishandled special players for 20, 30, 40 years. We’re trying to get him into the team so lets see how it goes.”

Carsley has made a series of changes for the trip to Finland, with Kyle Walker coming in at right-back. Dean Henderson has also replaced Jordan Pickford in goal, with Marc Guehi partnerning John Stones at centre-back in place of Levi Colwill.

HAVE YOUR SAY! Was Lee Carsley right to pick Trent Alexander-Arnold at left-back? Comment below.

In midfield, Angel Gomes and Jack Grealish have both come into the side, with Phil Foden, Rico Lewis, Bukayo Saka and Anthony Gordon all dropping out. And finally, Harry Kane has recovered from injury to captain the side up-front.

Carsley has defended his decision to make a raft of changes for Sunday’s game. And he hailed Alexander-Arnold’s versatility, hinting he won’t be playing in the natural left-back position.

“We are looking for a reaction, we fell below the levels we expect. There was a case of getting a look at a few other players and we were always going to look at Dean Henderson in one of these games,” Carsley told ITV Sport.

“Trent Alexander-Arnold is multi versatile and his role will be slightly different to a conventional left back. We haven’t won anything since 1966 and so we have to try something different.”

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