Lee Carsley is hopeful that Jadon Sancho has “found a home” at Chelsea where he feels “rated” and “loved”, as he stressed that he didn’t yet want to call the winger back up for England because he wants to create a higher threshold for the squad than just “doing well for three or four games”.
The interim manager admitted that he could have called up 30 players for what is a rare “fully loaded” squad in terms of fitness, but that he is intent on setting a culture where those selected feel it is “an achievement”. It is for that reason players of different profiles like Eberechi Eze and Harry Maguire were left out of the Nations League games at home to Greece and away to Finland.
Carsley said he is monitoring Sancho’s performances, and is all too aware of his potential having coached the forward in Manchester City’s Youth Cup team that lost the 2017 final to Chelsea. Sancho has already provided three assists at Stamford Bridge this season, having agreed a loan move from Manchester United in the summer.
“Jadon is a player that I really like. We were really lucky at City, we had a team with Jadon, Phil [Foden], Brahim [Diaz], Lukas Nmecha. We had a really good team but we still lost the Youth Cup as they had a really good team as well.
“Jadon is a player that has huge potential who has hopefully found a home where he feels rated, he feels loved. He put in a really good performance the other day and I think he just needs time now to play.
“I don’t ever feel in a rush where a player is doing well for three or four games should be in an England squad. Dom [Solanke] has his call-up and earned the right to be called up for England with what he’s done this season and the body of work behind. When he’s got that call I think he’s thinking he probably deserves this.”
It is why Carsley went for a slightly trimmed-down squad for these games, when he had an abundance of options to pick from.
“According to the medical staff it is quite unusual, especially with the amount of games the players have played, up until announcing the squad we’ve been fully loaded so it has been a real challenge picking this squad.
“I spoke about it before, the toughest part of the job is picking the squad because you could quite easily pick a 30-man squad and justify why they should be in.
“In the back of my mind I wanted to make sure it feels fresh, it feels that when you get that email or WhatsApp that you’ve been called up that it’s an achievement because it shouldn’t be something that is taken for granted.”
Asked about Maguire, Carsley said he was only left out due to the desire to look at other options but insisted the Manchester United centre-half has “still got a big part to play”.
“It was more a case of we’ve got four centre backs that I wouldn’t mind seeing play. And I’m really respectful of what you’ve said about Harry, he’s so important, has been and will be in the future.
“I wouldn’t want to bring a really experienced player away and not play any minutes. I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think it’s right. Harry’s still got a big part to play — if we’re going to be successful, we’re definitely going to need him.”
With Carsley keen to develop a squad full of multi-positional players, he even suggested Cole Palmer can play left-back, when asked whether Trent Alexander-Arnold will be used there.
“Yeah he can play there,” Carsley initially said of the Liverpool star. “Bukayo [Saka] can play there, Cole can play there, so there’s quite a few. Obviously you want to get the best out of them in their most natural positions.
We know if we play a right-footed player there, at left-back, that we’re going to have to build differently and be creative in the way we set up, I think if you’re asking a right-footed player to play high and wide and playing too high and wide, it can be sometimes a little bit predictable.
“It’s important that we aren’t predictable, that we’ve got different ways of attacking and I think with the players we’ve got we can also swap the players over the wide players so they are on their natural sides just to give the opposition something different to think about.”