Ireland vs England LIVE: Nations League team news and updates as Carsley era begins

Especially as he is sufficiently young that Nani is still playing. The 37-year-old’s godson is Angel Gomes; a winger known for his flicks and tricks has had a peripatetic career since leaving Old Trafford but often checks in on Gomes. “He has been a big influence,” said the Lillemidfielder. “He was someone I used to watch and gave me joy.”

If they have a common denominator on their CVs in Manchester United, there is another team each could have represented. Gomes has played for England at Under 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21 level, winning the Under-17 World Cup and the Under-21 European Championship. A trilingual midfielder is qualified to play for Angola, the country of his father’s birth. But Gil Gomes’ international football came for Portugal, in the same Under-21 team as Luis Figo, Rui Costa and Joao Pinto; they won what was then called World Youth Championship.

New call-up Morgan Gibbs-White was buzzing to find out Lee Carsley had been named interim England manager and feels like the role “suits him perfectly”.

Just 14 months after leading an England Under-21s side featuring the Nottingham Forest star to European Championship glory, the 50-year-old is in charge of the senior side for the first time.

“I’ve worked with Cars before, I know how he works,” Gibbs-White said.

“He’s a great manager tactically, man-management is great and I was buzzing when I found out that he got the job because I felt like he really deserved it, and I feel like it suits him perfectly.

“So hopefully the games go well for him, and you never know what the future holds.”

Rico Lewis is expecting interim boss Lee Carsley to bring dominant, dynamic and exciting football to England.

It is just under two months since Gareth Southgate called time on his eight-year reign having suffered another narrow defeat in the final of a European Championship.

The Football Association’s search for a permanent successor continues, with England Under-21s boss Carsley parachuted in for the autumn’s Nations League fixtures that start against the Republic of Ireland on Saturday.

Asked what can be expected from Carsley, Lewis said: “To dominate pretty much every game we play.

“That is the intention, to dominate and control the whole game and with that comes a lot of exciting work. Also, controlling the game when we have not got the ball, as well.

Plenty has been written about Lee Carsley this week, so we’ll start with in chronological order, with the squad announcement!

Carsley has picked four uncapped players in his first England squad – Noni Madueke, Angel Gomes, Morgan Gibbs-White and Tino Livramento. The first three were all integral parts of the former U21 manager’s victory at the U21 European Championship in 2023 – the first time England had won that trophy in 39 years.

All four players could be in line to make their debuts tonight, with Madueke potentially coming onto the wing in the absence of Phil Foden and Angel Gomes an interesting option to partner Declan Rice as a deeper midfielder.

Tino Livramento could well start due to the absence of a traditional left-back in the squad, while Morgan Gibbs-White is a good option in the attacking midfield role in the absence of Palmer and Foden.

Unsurprisingly, Spain enter this year’s proceedings as heavy favourites to defend their crown. They’ve reached two out of three finals so far and beat Croatia on penalties to secure their first Nations League trophy last year.

It’s fair to say Luis de la Fuente’s side have improved massively since then. Spain were scintillating en route to winning Euro 2024, with the emergence of Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams forcing teams to clam up in fear of being ripped apart on the wings.

France may well be the team that can push Spain the furthest. We never truly saw the best of Les Bleus at Euro 2024, with Kylian Mbappe’s broken nose hidden behind a mask amounting to lasting image of their tournament. France showed some excellent defensive qualities in Germany as William Saliba and Jules Kounde stepped up, even if they remained blunt in attack.

Julian Nagelsmann may well feel like the Germans missed out on a wonderful opportunity during their own tournament. He now oversees a new era without Toni Kroos, Ilkay Gundogan, Thomas Muller and Manuel Neuer, four stalwarts of the nation’s success across many years.

This year’s Nations League feels like it will come too soon to push for the title, with Germany more likely to sit with Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands as League A challengers who sit slightly on the outside.

The extra knockout stage will only impact a small number of nations, with much of the schedule playing out how we’ve seen before.

• Matchday 1: 5-7 September 2024
• Matchday 2: 8-10 September 2024
• Matchday 3: 10-12 October 2024
• Matchday 4: 13-15 October 2024
• Matchday 5: 14-16 November 2024
• Matchday 6: 17-19 November 2024
• Knockout round play-off draw: November 2024
• Knockout round play-offs: 20-25 March 2025
• League A quarter-finals: 20-25 March 2025
• Final tournament: 4-8 June 2025

Each team will continue to play the others in their group home and away, but qualification for the finals is now slightly different. A new knockout round has been added for March 2025 in a bid to create a greater sense of continuity between the end of the group and the start of the knockouts.

The gap between both stages–which has previously been from November to June–was deemed too long and not a great way to build hype for a competition that already has plenty of doubters.

Here’s how the new system will work:

The League A winners and second-placed teams will enter home and away quarter-finals against each other. Victorious teams will take up the four spots in the finals, while fourth-placed teams in Leagues A and B will be relegated. Those battling in League C have to work a little harder for safety with the two bottom-placed sides plummeting to League D.

On the flipside, all four winners from Leagues B and C will be automatically promoted, with the two League D winners also moving up. Further promotions will be decided via two-legged play-offs, between the third-ranked teams in League A and runners-up in League B, as well as the third-ranked teams in League B and runners-up in League C.

Confused yet? There’s more.

The two best ranked fourth-place teams in League C will meet the two runners-up from League D to decide who enters the next competition in the higher division.

The Nations League is back in full force and we’ll break down all the changes, groups and everything you need to know about the competition throughout the afternoon.

This season’s group draw threw up some interesting fixtures when it was made back in February. Four leagues were created based on each nation’s results in the last Nations League, with four pots then being established within each league based on the same criteria.

One team from each pot was then drawn into each group within their league to get the final draw. Here’s how the groups look with teams from the Home Nations in bold:

Group A1: Croatia, Portugal, Poland, Scotland

Group A2: Italy, Belgium, France, Israel

Group A3: Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Group A4: Spain, Denmark, Switzerland, Serbia

Group B1: Czechia, Ukraine, Albania, Georgia

Group B2: England, Finland, Republic of Ireland, Greece

Group B3: Austria, Norway, Slovenia, Kazakhstan

Group B4: Wales, Iceland, Montenegro, Turkiye

Group C1: Sweden, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Estonia

Group C2: Romania, Kosovo, Cyprus, Lithuania*

Group C3: Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Northern Ireland, Belarus

Group C4: Armenia, Faroe Islands, North Macedonia, Latvia

Group D1: Gibraltar, San Marino, Liechtenstein

Group D2: Moldova, Malta, Andorra

For some around the Irish squad, it’s still strange to be preparing for a match against Lee Carsley’s England. Ireland made a strong push for the admired coach, since he has 40 caps for the country. A solid Ireland midfielder is now the most important figure in English football culture, and will have a tricolour by his name if he takes England to the World Cup.

Carsley was born in Birmingham but qualified for Ireland through his Cork grandmother, and spoke last week of naturally feeling both nationalities. The same applies to many for Saturday’s game in Dublin, most notably Declan Rice and Jack Grealish, who make up at least nine England regulars over the last half-decade that could have also represented Ireland. It is almost an inevitable inversion of the fixture’s history, when it was Ireland that most benefited from the country’s diaspora to Britain.

Despite being away from home, England should have more than enough firepower to beat an inferior Ireland team, though the timing and importance of the match means the result likely won’t be emphatic.

Republic of Ireland 0-3 England.