Another Carsley Reign Ends

And so Lee Carsley’s reign as caretaker England manager came to an end in emphatic style on Sunday with a 5-0 win over the Republic of Ireland – the country he won 40 caps for as a player.

As he hands over to Thomas Tuchel, the former Brentford caretaker manager did so with five wins from six games (arguably against opposition such results would be expected against), and with a win ratio of 83.3% that sits only second to 100-per-center Sam Allardyce in the all-time table (although it could be argued that caretakers should not be included in such rankings, and much less permanent appointments like Allardyce who only managed a single game in charge).

Impressive stuff? On the face of it, yes, although anyone who sat through England’s turgid home defeat to Greece a few weeks back would agree Carsley’s reign was far from perfect, and the failed experiment in not starting with a recognised striker was probably the moment his chances of landing the job permanently disappeared – if, indeed, he wanted it in the first place.

At Brentford, Carsley was a tad more conservative in his line ups, and it was his successor at Griffin Park, Dean Smith, whose ill-advised experiment with starting with no recognised striker, for a trip to QPR in the spring of 2016, bore similarly consequences. Who can forget poor Alan Judge trying hopelessly to plough a lone furrow up front as strikers Lasse Vibe and Marco Djuracin sat on the bench, while the Bees crumbled to an uninspiring 3-0 defeat?

But back to Carsley, and it appears that a largely successful run of results, necessary stabilisation and handing over of squad in good shape to his successor are not the only parallels between his spells as caretaker with Brentford and England. As the BBC’s Phil McNulty pointed out, it was “mission accomplished” for Carsley in his time as England boss, but not without its “complications” – and not just that striker-free selection against Greece.

McNulty wrote: “The 50-year-old also got caught up in chaotic mixed messaging about whether he wanted the job or not, especially when he appeared to rule himself out, and then in again, just minutes after last month’s 3-1 victory in Finland – matters made worse by the FA later revealing Tuchel had already been signed and sealed even before the Greece loss.”

All this will have sounded very familiar to Brentford fans, who watched on in bemusement as Carsley used his first post-match press conference after taking over from the chaos of Marinus Dijkhuizen’s regime, to say he did not want the job permanently – something he repeated throughout his 11-game reign. In fact, Rasmus Ankersen would later tell myself and Dave Lane, in an interview for the Brentford Revolution book, that as good a job as Carsley did, he was hard to manage “as he was telling us after every game that he wasn’t going to take the next one”.

Ankersen went on to say: “We’d originally had an agreement with him that he was going to do the whole season, and then extend to being an assistant coach for the next head coach coming in – that’s what we agreed and put in the press release. But the day after the first game, he woke me up at 7am handing in his notice. He even said in the post-match press conference that he didn’t want the job.” Indeed, one gets the feeling that even a decade on, Carsley was only slightly more comfortable with a place in the limelight and the idea of a full management role.

One thing is beyond doubt though. Carsley, on both occasions, handed over a team in better shape and eased the path for his successor – something which Dean Smith acknowledged on more than one occasion, and which Thomas Tuchel will surely find when he takes the national team’s reigns.

I was moved to take another look at Carsley’s time in charge of Brentford after noticing a post on the Griffin Park Grapevine at the time of him taking the England job. The vast majority of posts about his time in the hot seat at TW8 were of a positive nature, but one stood out to me, saying that the short-lived Brentford era under Carsley was being seen through rose-tinted spectacles and hadn’t been the triumph most were trumpeting about.

Had I missed something? Well, two defeats in his opening two games don’t tell a story of complete success, but it must be remembered that following those reverses to Derby and Birmingham – coming in the space of four days, and within three of taking over – Carsley had an international break of two weeks in which to properly mould his influence on the team. This, as has since been reported, included getting the players, who had complained about a lack of fitness due to Dijkhuiizen’s training methods, up to scratch again.

What followed was four wins in a row which catapulted Brentford away from the Championship danger zone and into the more comfortable climes of mid-table. These included impressive away wins at Wolves and Charlton, in which five goals were scored and none conceded, and that famous night at Griffin Park in which the Bees inflicted a first derby defeat in 50 years on West London neighbours QPR.

It was always going to be difficult keeping that momentum going, and Carsley saw out his reign with one more win, two draws and a defeat. But even that loss was against a Hull City side who went top of the Championship table with those three points, and who would eventually be promoted to the Premier League through the play-offs at the end of the season.

Smith said on taking charge: “If you look at how the team is doing, Lee has already steadied the ship. I am coming into a place that is working very well at the moment, and that is down to Lee. Normally, when a manager comes in it’s because something is wrong, but Brentford fortunately had some like Lee who could step up and turn things around. Lee made it clear from the start that he didn’t want to be manager, but he takes great pride in helping turn around what was a faltering start to the season.” Sound familiar?

It’s clear from those words – not to mention memories of Marco Djuracin’s decider against QPR, Phillip Hoffman’s last-minute winner against Nottingham Forest and Alan Judge’s all-important brace against Rotherham – that Carsley’s time at Brentford should be remembered as similar to his spell as England number one. Not perfect in any way, and not without its complications, but impressive nonetheless, and just what was needed at the time. Hopefully he will be remembered fondly by the vast majority of both sets of fans.

Tim Street