Lee Carsley defends selection after France defeat

Lee Carsley defended his selection after a 5-3 defeat to France on his return to his regular job as England Under-21 manager.

Carsley’s front three of James McAtee, Harvey Elliott and Liam Delap all found the net in Lorient but his defence struggled to contain a France side spearheaded by hat-trick hero Hugo Ekitike.

“It’s something that we need to look at, obviously – to concede five goals, and not great goals either,” Carsley said.

“I don’t think it would have had any benefit coming over here and just playing the way that we always do.”

McAtee gave England an early lead but they were behind by the seventh minute as Quentin Merlin equalised before Ekitike netted his first.

The Eintracht Frankfurt striker’s second was followed by a quick Elliott reply, and his third by a Delap header, but Elliott missed a penalty and substitute Omari Hutchinson was sent off after Rayan Cherki had made the game safe.

Carsley said: “This is our European Championship preparation. It was important that we tried something different.

“We have to experiment. We have to try something and we’re trying it against a top team as well. It’s a good test for the players.

“We always want to play with a punch. We want to score goals.”