England’s plan to get Cole Palmer and Jude Bellingham in same team revealed | Football

An injury to Harry Kane has opened the door for England manager Lee Carsley to harness the attacking talents of Jude Bellingham and Cole Palmer in the same starting XI.

The interim manager takes charge of the Three Lions for the third time this evening looking to maintain his 100% record since taking over from Gareth Southgate.

Greece are the opponents at Wembley tonight and England are overwhelming favourites to make it three wins from three under their caretaker boss, despite the potential absence of their skipper, who trained alone on Wednesday.

Carsley has the likes of Ollie Watkins and Dominic Solanke at his disposal should he wish to select a like-for-like replacement but the 50-year-old is considering going down a different route.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Carsley is tempted to deploy Jude Bellingham as a false nine, which would present the opportunity to select Palmer in his favoured No.10 role.

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Such a decision would also give Carsley the flexibility to pick two from Bukayo Saka, Phil Foden and Anthony Gordon in the wide positions.

Accommodating all of England’s best attacking players in the same team proved a challenge for Carsley’s predecessor who chose to use Palmer as an impact substitute during England’s Euro 2024 campaign.

Indeed, prior to Kane’s injury, Carsley suggested he might be forced to pick England’s newly crowned Player of the Year as a makeshift left-back.

He said last week: ‘Yeah, he (Alexander-Arnold) can play there,’ Carsley said.

‘Bukayo can play there, Cole can play there, so there’s quite a few. Obviously you want to get the best out of them in their most natural positions.

‘We know if we play a right-footed player there, at left-back, that we’re going to have to build differently and be creative in the way we set up.

‘I think if you’re asking a right-footed player to play high and wide and playing too high and wide, it can be sometimes a little bit predictable.

‘It’s important that we aren’t predictable, that we’ve got different ways of attacking.

‘I think with the players we’ve got we can also swap the players over the wide players so they are on their natural sides just to give the opposition something different to think about.’