Jordan Pickford weighs in on Lee Carsley’s prospects in the England dug-out after shambolic showing against Greece – and bizarrely claims Three Lions ‘weren’t far off’ in historic defeat

Jordan Pickford gave a vague answer on whether England’s 2-1 defeat to Greece will play a role in Lee Carsley’s future as head coach, as the goalkeeper offered a rare defense of his team’s performance on Thursday night. evening.

England’s No 1 conceded two goals to top scorer Vangelis Pavlidis on a historic night for the visiting Hellenes, who claimed their first win against the Three Lions at Wembley.

Greece’s victory came with a layer of poignancy as they dedicated the victory to the late George Baldock, the former international and Sheffield United player who died on Wednesday after drowning in his swimming pool.

But there was also cause for celebration amid the pain, as the visitors were worthy winners against a chaotic England side who were outplayed.

Carsley, who has been interim head coach following the departure of Gareth Southgate following this summer’s Euros, will be hoping to bounce back and regain his role against Finland on Sunday.

But Pickford could not say whether he believed the defeat had affected his manager’s chances of taking over full-time.

“I’m not the hierarchy,” Pickford said after the match, before admitting: “It’s never nice for a player or coaching staff to be beaten at Wembley.

“We want to win every game we play when we put on this jersey and we didn’t. So we have to move on, dust ourselves off. What can we do better, what can we learn from to move forward and get the result on Sunday?

‘You always have to learn. You will never be perfect, even when you win games. You can learn a lot from this.

“It’s about recovering well and getting ready for Sunday.”

But for all Pickford’s talk about improving and moving on ahead of the second Nations League match of the international break, the Everton goalkeeper believes the result contradicted England’s performance that night.

“I think we got caught too much in transition,” Pickford continued. “I think we were a little open.

“Sometimes in football it gets a bit strange because a couple of sloppy passes really take you out and make us counterattack quite quickly and they did that quite a few times. “They played long balls and probably won second balls more than us tonight and that one could have was the difference that night.

“But the football we played was good and I know we always want to win, but we didn’t.

“We have to dust ourselves off and see what we can do much better and go ahead and win on Sunday.”

‘We weren’t very far. They only caught us in two or three transitions. Other than that, we controlled it but we were outplayed and we are disappointed as a nation. “It’s about how we prepare now for the next game.”

While Pickford might have thought it was a matter of small margins between England and their opponents, however, ITV pundit Roy Keane passed a harsher judgment on the team and singled out the goalkeeper for particular criticism.

The former Manchester United player pointed out what he perceived as a lack of urgency in Pickford’s performance in the first half, questioning whether his behavior had an impact on his teammates.

‘That spreads a message throughout the team: the lack of concentration levels, the lack of urgency.

‘What are you doing? “Do it quickly, it’s not a good message from Pickford,” he said, after Pickford lost possession away from home and needed Levi Colwill to rescue him.