How England Were HUMILIATED By Greece 

Are people under the impression that experimentation goes the way you want it to 100% of the time? The whole point of experimenting means you’re gonna get results like this before you find the way that works. Fair play to him for at least trying. If he religiously sticks to it then fair play he needs to be looked at, but not gonna complain about one game

I know you made a joke about it, but as a Greek (living in the UK and was at Wembley for the match) it was really great to hear some good words for the Greek NT. Our team was forced to play under some very difficult circumstances and they arguably had our best performance in 20 years. I really hope Carsley and England can figure it out because they (and their fans) deserve to see their team win another trophy

I like that Carsley tried something different in what is basically a glorified friendly, but since the day of old & trying to fit Gerrard, Lampard & Scholes all in to the same line up I've never thought it was a good idea to try & shoehorn all the best players in just because they're the best players. Pick the best team not just the best players.

I guess that the rationale was "What better time to try new things. We're playing home with an opponent which traditionally plays overly defensive, so we're gonna need a flexible shape with interchangeable offensive players". With this premise in mind it's objectively 100% right his decision to shuffle the cards and try new things with his team: he's been a coach for just a short period of time and he'll need time to experiment. The thing is that despite Greece's low flights in recent years, there's some genuine talent that the world outside Greece hasn't seen just yet. Is there anyone who thought before the game that Greece would try to play with such composure and calmness or that Greece would try to build up the game in Wembley? A reminder: in the first half possession was 51-49, only after Greece's first goal, Greece gave space to England, in order to find open play in the transitions, which resulted in 2 (offside) goals. So, yes Carsley did the right thing to try new things, but, he was punished by a team nobody knew could play this way.

Born in England, family is Greek, support both teams. So I can say that England were equal parts bad as Greece were equal parts good. It's the best Greek performance I've seen in a long time. Them boys were hungry. I mean they scored 5 goals....Greece! We usually max out at 2 goals

Great video as usual, I could honestly spend 12 hours in the pub with Adam Clery chatting. Bad result but they found out something about over-commiting and credit to Carsley for trying it out.

For the backlash this game has caused, it’s refreshing to hear someone talk positively about it. It’ll be food for thought for Carsley, and he’s got three more games to silence the critics.

Adam cleary is quite possibly the best analysis breakdown machine on RU-vid ❤

Foden got wrapped up by Mavropanos like a juicy Gyros. West Ham are mad to not give this guy a solid CB partner and play him week in week out.

Angel Gomes was such a step forward for our midfield, hopefully Carsley brings him back in.

RIP George Baldock. His death surely motivated the Greek side to win. But that’s not an excuse for this star studded England squad. They are expected to win these games especially at Wembley.

I thought you'd mention the lack of Angel Gomes.

This formation, when I first saw it, struck as outright CRAZY but the courage and bravery to send a team with more than half made-up of attacking midfielders has to be acknowledged. Hats off to Carsley and best of luck to his future endeavors. I'm excited to see how that will turn out.

Greetings from .1% of your viewers. We played wonderfully, but we couldn't celebrate such a great win. So bittersweet. I came to figure out what England tried to play, though.

That left side for Greece who toyed with England consists of two ex Norwich players tzolis and giannoulis. Norwich great at identifying talent not so much for using it.

Phil Foden, 1 goal in 4 years and both Southgate and Carsley have tried to platform him, both failed. I think at some point he should just be dropped from the squad. Literally just swap Foden for Gomes and England win

I’m glad the nation finally seen what us evertonians have to put up with every week from Pickford. He’s absolutely Shocking for a goalie.

It's only "Greece" and "Finland" right?? That is what Talksport and other English media outlets were saying...

Totally agree with the comment by Adam at the end about Lee Carsley will not get the job. Even though the FA have expressed the desire to have an English managers. The problem of having high quality English managers is something the FA failed to address. St Georges Park addressed the quality of the players. Failed to address the quality of the available English managers. It is the bigger issue that the FA needs to work on. Currently in Spain 15/20 managers are Spanish, in Germany 9/18 are German, in Italy 16/20 are Italians, in France 10/18 are French, of which 2 are English. In the premier league 4/20 managers are English.

Did everyone just decide to not mention Angel Gomes as the solution to England's midfield problems?

Probably because I'm watching from the safe distance of the Canadian prairie, but I thoroughly enjoyed that analysis. Moving, sincere, insightful, bonkers.

I want him to actually drop Foden now. Palmer and Bellingham are ahead of him at 10 and I can't remember his last good game for England. Why he started without a striker I don't know. Please let us learn from the mistake of playing lampard, Gerrard and Scholes. Palmer, Bellingham and Foden can't all start

Basically before the end of the first half I was anticipating this video, cheers Adam!

I was surprised Carsley did not pick Angel Gomes. England certainly missed him last night.

7:07 - I just realized it's like the Christmas tree formation but upside down

Clearly England managers can’t say no to the big names in the squad

Fodem isn't a creative player,he,s a goalscorer,his penetrative passing is non existant

Who else agrees Carsley did this formation and line-up to prove a point that you can't play 4-6-0 with no defensive midfielder, two attacking full backs and no recognised striker? Me thinks yes.

Adam, you're the best. Football opinionators are so bloody loud and urgh and you just outsmart the lot of them. I always come to your videos for a bit of sanity. Thank you!

I don't remember anyone saying Southgate had to find a way to fit both Bellingham and Foden into the team. Most fans were saying he shouldn't be trying to shoehorn them both in.

It's a ridiculous overreaction here. Yes, England lost, yes, it was to Greece, yes, it was at home... but for pity sake this is the first time we have seen any England side playing like this. Throwing caution to the wind and playing exciting, attacking football. A system like this will take time for everyone to work out and truly adapt to. They will have learned more in this defeat than in an equivalent 5 wins. Let them keep going at it for a while and if in a few months time we can beat a big team 3 or 4 - nil, by playing insanely open, aggressive and dynamic football then this loss to Greece will be but a distant memory. Give Lee Carsley a chance!

Greece have been notoriously known for being strong in Defence, and have been criticised for being too defensive. Which makes it baffling why a recognised number 9 in Watkins or Solanke didn’t start to keep The Greek CB’s preoccupied. This “innovate” formation was complete arrogance from England underestimating the Greek Defence, and the issues that Tzoilis, Masouras would cause on the counter attack. This Greek team under Jovanovic won’t park the bus from the very start. Carsley should take more time in studying and respecting opponents before trying to reinvent the wheel

what a quick upload! cheers Adam

How do you drop your best player in the last game. Anyone in the world can see Rice has always let us down in build up. That role has to be set in stone for a gomes type.

I'm in that 0.1%, dude. Our players performed excellently. We'll be back on the European map soon. Wait for us!!!

This is why Pep and super Mik are obsessed with rest defence and OOP work

Couldn’t agree with you more had a couple of heated debates with friends already, I have been to watch England at the last 3 major tournaments and listened to some fans slag Southgate off and he always said if I just play our best talented and attacking players this maybe the result…. I think we need to find the balance with this and Southgate. My opinion is we need a player like Gomes and beside him you either play Bellingham or rice..

you're the first person i've ever seen wearing a sodding Greggs hoodie that wasn't serving me in a Greggs

Seriously baffled with some of the takes I saw from people during and after the game. This video really breaks down that conceptually this game was incredibly innovative and legiatamtely could have worked. There were two serious problems tho, and it wasnt the team selection or the tactics neccessarily. 1) The defense was shambolic. Colwill did good, Stones did his best, but Pickford had an absolutely awful night and neither of our fullbacks ever seemed interested in defending or getting back on the counter as quickly as other players were trying. As was said in tihs video "We've got two fullbacks who aren't fullbacks." 2) The finishing touch. Honestly, this came could have been 4-2 or 5-2 in England's favor if we had just had better shots. We had a LOT of chances. A lot of GOOD chances tbh, but just couldnt get the ball into the net. Palmer narrowly pissed a freekick shot and shanked a sitter, Bellingham shanked a half volley, Watkins struggled to get control of the through-balls sent his way, Gordon missed that early header, etc. It wasn't a matter of our attacking build-up and chance creation sucking, it was a matter of the players just struggling to find that final touch and put the ball into the net when given a chance. And that happens. That happens to every player some time or another. That happens to every team. A lot of people are saying Angel Gomes should've been paired with Rice, Jude takes that "false 9" spot up top, an Palmer is alone in the 10 while Foden ends up on the bench due to his lack of form and just failure to ever show up for England, and tbh thats a gameplan I agree with. But I won't pretend that I didn't *like* what Carsley wanted to do today. I won't pretend like we lost because Foden started, or because Bellingham was too far forward. Or any of that other BS people online keep spewing. We lost because of defensive failures - fullbacks not doing their job, a keeper having a poor night, a lone 6 who's really more of an 8, etc. And we lost because we couldn't capitalize on our chances.

The team got set up all wrong when you have 8 attacking players and only 2 defenders .we were wide open to get ripped apart. If it was a better team, the score would have been even bigger.???????????

Good video. Impressive turnaround time on the analysis

hi!! from Greece, nice to hear about us in the great 🥳 fourfourtwo. love the channel!!

Its going to be a brave manager that drops Foden and Bellingham for the good of the team. Both have are individuals (admittedly bags of talent) but with no chemistry with the rest of the team. Both are 'moments' players. We dont need their disruption, we already have possibly the top goalscorer in the world.

You are amazing, mate!

I was furious Gomes was dropped. I honestly thought Carsley could be diffferent from the Southgate’s of the world. His first two games had a balanced England…finally. But it was all bullshit. The only reason Gomes was there was tweedledum and tweedledee were injured. We just had a whole tournement watching foden and Bellingham get in each others way in what is imo the worst performing England team in decades. We were the worst team at the Euro’s, an ugly team. And we just have another coward of a manager, terrified of dropping big names despite their lack of any form ever in an England shirt. You play Gomes, you play ONE of Palmer, Bellingham and Foden (the one who’s in the best form), that would be Palmer…shoving round pegs into square holes again. It’s SO frustrating.

Greece is a good team We drew with france and almost drew against them in velodrome aswell but ref gave them 2 fake penalties and a red card to us We almost beat Netherlands but ref gave them 2 fake penalties We comfortably won every opponent that wasnt in the big nations Greece was a shit national team a few years ago but ever since 2022 it has transformed into a team that can rival the big teams

Was waiting for this

Credit to him? Is he going to go through every mistake we have already made? Where was Gomes? For me this was a scandalous waste of an England game. No Kane meant at last we could start another striker, in a full strength England. Instead we got over complication and seemingly went back to just playing all our top attackers with zero foundation to play in front of. The fact the manager failed to act at half time is a red flag. The manager let himself down.

I agree with you! He had a go, gave what England fans have craved all summer, and it went tits up! 😂 he needs to keep going for it like this…

Angel Gomes has to start. This team needs structure and a holding man.

Love it this is the way football should be played

The system can work, it just needs fine tuning and time 🔮 The system was changed so drastically without time for players to build chemistry, so it all looked a mess. Changes: Play Watkins/Kane instead of Foden to give the attack a focal point & ability to hold up the ball, and then have Rice be more disciplined in possession to form a holding defensive three-Lewis and TAA are better at buildup play anyways. My main takeaway from the game was this drastic system change was implemented too quickly without proper time/reps for players to adjust. England got caught out so many times because as players would rotate, they’d all inevitably end up near Greece’s 18yrd box; that lack of discipline combined with the new patterns of play from players in new parts of the field led to a lot of missed passes/turnovers and made it all look a mess. I’d like to see Carsley made slight adjustments and go again, these things take time.

Carsley deserves credit and proved one of Adam's points, he tried to fit all the available talent in but they were not able adapt to a more defensive structure when needed

England are literally like school football, the best players are just thrown on, truely a bunch of individuals

This is a very complex and positionally fluid tactic. The players would have to know this and drill it and would take a long time to form cohesion. For players to know where to be and when. 20 minutes practice for this was insane!

Who knew shoehorning all your attacking players into the same lineup would lead to a hopelessly unbalanced team? I don't understand what Carsley was trying to do with this set up, unless he was trying to prove a point.

Yep. Have to agree with you guys over Angel Gomes...and have Adam Wharton on the bench. Phil Foden is the latter day John Barnes (for those of us old enough to remember), brilliant at club football, just can't quite cut it at international football (not yet, anyway). Agreed, Adam Cleary is the best analysis guvnor on youtube.

Credit to him. Sometimes you have to give people what they ask for to them mad it is.... Like letting a child experience the shock of electricity to let them no not to go there again

Comparing Pickford to a small dog cracked me up!!! 🤣🤣🤣 Fool should be nowhere near an England shirt

That first half was the most exciting spell I’ve had in watching England for ages. Yes there were issues in defence but credit for trying something different. Needed to see Angel G alongside Dec

I absolutely love your take on the game and I think you're 100% right. It was brave. It was what people wanted. And now we are all going to act like we know better 😢

I can just accept that defeat so much better than games under Southgate. Playing without a striker was a bit naive but he tried it, it didn’t work. I think he needs to incorporate Ollie Watkins and probably Angel Gomes. I’d drop Saka and Gordon to the bench, play Foden left, Palmer right and Bellingham in the 10 position. If he does this, I think he’ll get much closer to the perfect attacking balance in a fraction of the time Southgate had in charge.

I mean…you were jizzing over him last time 😂

Reminds me of when I first starting playing Football Manager way over a decade ago and my first thought was to have as many players upfront as possible and your'e bound to win, right? I think I lost that game 3 or 4 nil and didn't have a shot on their goal. I was baffled as to why this happened at the time and eventually I got sacked, unsurprisngly. Very glad Carsley did this and allowed the players to play with the responsibility, nowhere for them to hide now having thrown Southgate under the bus. The first ten-fifteen minutes was actually really good to watch, it was like watching a high pressing premier league team and then Greece adapted and England didn't or couldn't or wouldn't. I think THE most damning thing of it all though was the fact that England had 1 or was it 2 shots on target the entire game, they had chances to score but as usual it seems clear that the shirt weighs very heavily on most of them and throws off their balance to the extent they can't score despite scoring amazing goals week in week out in the premier league. This England team is WAY WAY overhyped, it has some good players but everyone keeps calling them world class which they simply are not, maybe Bellingham one day and look where he is playing, at Madrid, can you really see any of the others becoming the next Messi or Zidane and that's what we used to call world class players, now it just gets bandied about to any good player in an international squad it seems. Sadly, they have all bought into this and while confidence is good, over confidence leads to what we saw in the Euros and last night against Greece. Everyone bleats on about how to play Foden, Bellingham, Palmer, Saka etc all in the same team, for me that's not even a question because I don't think, with the exception of Bellingham, any of them are that good they deserve an automatic start. For ducks sake, how many times did you see Gerrard or Lampard or Beckham score a goal from outside the box playing for England? All the ducking time! It's as if this Englad have either been instructed to work the ball into the box and do nothing else or are unable at International level to shoot and score outside the box and because teams will sit and hit you on the counter that is often the only way you will score AND to highlight this, it's also how Bellingham got his goal, arguably the only potentially world class player we have. Sheesh......now lets try and beat Finland 🤦‍♂ and when we win 2-0 the three lions will be world class again 🤦‍♂🤦‍♂🤦‍♂

I'm Greek. Liked your Analysis.

Great analysis. Only take I have is that Kane or Toney are perfect for this setup but that means that either Palmer or Foden goes to the bench. A focal point who scores goals, occupies the box and central defenders but is also skilled enough to do all of the intricate little passes is what this version of England probably needs

Formation and tactics made no sense. Let's suppose it worked really well; is he then gonna drop Kane? In international football with such limited time to coach complex tactics you need to keep it simple. Watkins must be fuming.

Greece played like Newcastle: stalwart defense and a long ball over the back line. That got Newcastle into the Champions League. England might have fared better if Pope was in net though...

Definitely agree, he deserves credit for experimenting in this way. This was pretty much the exact opposite approach to southgate. Extreme freedom rather than extreme discipline/caution. This is the time to experiment. This highlights that you can't just give unlimited freedom to players. Find the right balance between these two approaches and its coming home 🦁🦁🦁

Adam how would you fit Angel Gomes into this system? Is there a place for him in it?? 👑

im greek and i didnt expect this due to us being shit in recent years, our nt coach was sacked from panathinaikos due to shady reasons and he was having them playing amazing football, and now maybe we can qualify for more major tournaments with a coach like him

There wasn't a striker on the last man at any point until Watkins came on. Absolute joke.

That last point took the words out my mouth, literally armchair pundits all summer were saying that these players had to be in the team and that it would be treason not to include [insert here]. Honestly even though we lost I think he’s a lot more daring than Southgate and at the end of the day it was a throwaway game, nothing really lost by trying stuff at this point as opposed to never doing it. At least now we know we’re plagued by riches and you can’t just include all these players and expect easy wins

Angel Gomes in; Foden out; and Trent should not be inverting. Also Bellingham tends to disappear at times.

Carsley was clearly trying to do the old “you may score 3 but we’ll score 4” which would’ve worked if we took our chances

Terrence Malik levels of use of silence 👏 👏 👏

We were collectively crying out for all of these changes to the starting line up as a solution to England's problems, yes. Just maybe not necessarily all of them... at the same time. If you're going to try and get Gordon on as a winger to give width and allow Foden to be more central, but you don't want to take off Bellingham, then you can't also play Palmer. Not unless you've got a world class, deep sitting midfielder capable of playing by himself as a 6, which is not Declan Rice. Loads of fans had different ideas, but I doubt any of them wouldn't have agreed to do all of them at the same time!

Carsley was trolling the entire nation, and I love it

Watched the game and thought Adam will have a fucking field day with this haha

Because I am Greek could you analyse my team tactic please ??

Trent and Lewis were horrible defensively

Adam clerly for next England manager please !

Can't say it was boring. Several players looked a bit off though. Passes kept getting misplaced, first touch was off. Promising buildup led to mistakes, turnovers and rapid counterattacks. But there is something here to build on. Just needed one more control or defensive minded player in there, and you do need some physicality up top for holdup play. Even the 1982 Brazil team had Serginho up top for a reason. Foden kept getting bullied off the ball. Maybe Carsley isn't the right guy for the job, but that's not because he gambled and lost. This is the time to gamble and learn things. But his atrocious press conference was damning. Does he know what he wants to do? You can't put a brave lineup out there, and cower in fear of questions. Stick with your convictions, tell them you tried something, it didn't work out, but the work continues. Clearly England have to change, and this is the time to try things.

Drop Foden for a centre back. Play a morphing back 3/5. That gives you the extra cover in defence for an ineffective player up front. Bellingham plays as a false 9. Then switch Rice for Gomes. Not a slight on Rice but the Gomes video showed that he is a defence splitter. Exactly what was needed. AND give him the job!!!! We need to work through the pain to find an England that works not just kneejerk fire someone for trying to find the right balance. Some of the media (BBC) need to calm down and give people a chance! Sure there will be bad games but its a process. Screw it let's go back to 4-4-2 with 8 defenders and never make a sub.

Regardless of system - Pickford is a liability.

Carsley saw Man Utd’s style of play and thought I want some of that 😂 Suicidal to play the full backs so high with no one of note to support Rice in the middle

I love the fact that he tried it but it does kind of confirm that you need to pick a system and then pick the best players to fit that system - not just try to shoehorn all your best players onto the pitch.

We need to patient with Carsley

I’m really shocked Carsley never considered the 3-4-2-1 formation Southgate introduced which finally got us to play better football in our awful euros campaign. If he started to focus on that I really think we could be much more affective as a team considering in the euros we only played it for three matches. Also we could actually fit all the talents in our team affectively while keeping all the balance needed necessary for a team to function properly. He should have gone with: Watkins Palmer Foden Lewis Bellingham Rice Saka Guehi Stones Trent

As a greek i waited for this video since the nations league group stage draw. Shame you didnt get to see Ioannidis playing live

I agree Adam. it was worth a shot and love he's done it. But, if he could get it working and iron out the kinks I'd say give it a crack mate. If it's clearly still shit come World Cup time, we can just play 442 and I'd accept the fact he tried. Start early and have more time to perfect it before WC. Dreadful result though

As per, another fantastic analysis, keep up the good work. On Lee Carsley, I rate him for giving this a crack and hope he sticks to his guns and keeps trying to get it right. I was one of the people complaining about Southgate being too defensive/conservative this summer, so I love a more swashbuckling style. I don’t even mind if we get beat, I like the idea of us having more of a a go. More power to Carsley for having a crack!!

I actually want to see the game now. Sounds like the coach did something exciting.

He should be given credit…it’s all R&D, there will be learnings and if you never try you never know. Better to see it in what is effectively glorified friendly, than in a qualifier or in a tournament.

Kevin Keagan tactics, Kevin Keagan result. Bring back Sven! Just play 442 and make us look good against poor opposition.

Give them credit for trying to take the most attacking-oriented approach possible. Now we can point at the Greece game and say “that’s why we need some structure and rest defense” 😆

Adam...you kind of flagged the problems with this approach (BTW...isn't this really back to the old "W-M" idea?) in your previous video about Angel Gomes. The biggest disappointment to me with this England performance was the utter lack of end product as you point out. Personally, I am not too concerned about the Nations League games and I'm OK with the idea of experimenting with different ideas and systems. I was inclined to give Carsley a pass on this...until his after-match press conference where he came across as completely clueless. This kind of radical approach needs time for the players to get used to it...and that's something the managers don't have at International Level. For the "The System is Everything" faction...this match was a vindication of that view (Carsley picked the wrong system). Others have made this point...at International Level the manager needs to first pick a system and then pick the players to make that system work. It's a bit of a cliche, but there's a reason for that. Of course...the manager will then take flak for not including certain players. Next game...Carsley could do a lot worse than revert to a proper back 4 with your "Gomes Midfield" and a front 3 of...pick who you like from the 6-8 options. OR...should he stick with this approach and hope it works better next time?

I think Carsley deserves some credit for being adventurous, especially as he's only officially interim coach for 6 games. So his experiment failed, but he will have learned from it. I'd like to see Guehi back alongside Stones in defence, and maybe it's time to look at another keeper.

I was really surprised to see Foden as a central forward. Appreciate that is not a distinct role but I think he does much better when he's second man into the box and Bellingham arrives late for the header or pass into the corner. Need a striker ahead of him.

England played the game with only 3 defensive outfield players. It’s hardly surprising that Rice was overrun and Pickford was nervous. England without a right back. Mad.