England lineup: Alexander-Arnold starts in new position as Carsley bins off failed ‘experiment’

According to reports, Trent Alexander-Arnold is set to start in a new position when England face Finland in the Nations League on Sunday evening.

Interim England boss Lee Carsley boldly decided to use Jude Bellingham as a false nine earlier this week against Greece as Harry Kane missed the game due to an ankle injury.

This enabled Carsley to shoehorn Anthony Gordon, Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and Cole Palmer into his starting XI as he went all-out attack for England’s Nations League group match.

This did not pay off as The Three Lions produced a woeful performance as they were beaten 2-1 by Greece at Wembley.

His side’s showing against Greece has significantly hampered Carsley’s chances of getting the England job permanently Speaking post-match, he admitted he decided to go for this “experiment” after “trying it for 20 minutes” in training.

READ: Emery ‘the perfect fit’ for England as Trent backed and Chelsea defender not nearly ‘international’ standard

He said: “We were second best for a lot of tonight, it is disappointing. You are going to get setbacks and it’s important we respond.

“We tried something different and tried to overload the midfield. We tried it for 20 minutes yesterday, we experimented, and disappointed it didn’t come off.

“It’s unrealistic to expect too much and we will have to try again. All the goals were from mistakes, which is disappointing.

“It is definitely an option going forward. When you have someone of [Harry] Kane’s quality though it rules it out when he is available. But in the future you have to have the courage and ability to try things.

“We tried something different. It doesn’t change anything. My remit is to do the three camps.”

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England will attempt to bounce back from this defeat when they face Finland on Sunday. Unsurprisingly, Carsley has opted to bin off his false nine “experiment” as BBC Sport are reporting that Kane is ‘expected to return and lead the attack’.

Manchester City winger Jack Grealish is ‘in contention to start’, while Alexander-Arnold ‘looks set to start at left-back’. This presumably means Kyle Walker will play at right-back.

Speaking on Saturday, Carsley revealed he’s likely to start a “more conventional” striker against Finland.

“It’s important that we do try something different at times and I think I’ll be a better coach for that,” he said.

“But I think we’ll probably be a little bit more conventional tomorrow night.”

He added: “We haven’t won a major trophy since 1966, so to think that we can just keep doing it and keep being so close and at some point we are going to get over the line would be naive.

“We have been so close, we have got to acknowledge that but we still haven’t won.

“We have got to have the licence to try something different, because I have tried something and it hasn’t worked.

“It doesn’t put me off trying something again. If anything it makes me think, right what can I do differently? And how can we do something and get it right?”