England made a convincing start to the new year under Gareth Southgate on Saturday, beating Ireland 2-0 in the Nations League. Goals from Declan Rice and Jack Grealish gave interim coach Lee Carsley a win on his debut.
Carsley, who will be in charge of two matches this month and is expected to stay in the post until the autumn, represented Ireland as a player and it was his team’s two players with Irish connections – Rice and Grealish – who gave England an early lead that was never in danger.
Rice played three games for Ireland before moving to his native country, while Grealish played for England’s youth team, which was also playing for the first time under new manager Heimir Hallgrimsson.
Carsley would only need to produce a convincing win against a nation 54 places below them in the rankings to improve his chances of the full-time job, so the former England Under-21 manager stuck with Southgate’s squad for his first assignment.
The visitors, playing in the competition’s second tier for the first time, took the lead shortly after Irishman Sammie Szmodics forced a brilliant save from Jordan Pickford and Anthony Gordon wasted a one-on-one opportunity before Rice fired the ball safely into the top corner.
The Arsenal midfielder, booed throughout by the home fans, chose not to celebrate his fourth goal for England. Grealish showed no such restraint 15 minutes later when he slotted home a back pass from Rice after some neat English passes had easily cleared the way for Ireland.
England’s 352 completed passes in the first half to Ireland’s 50 or so highlighted the gulf between the two teams and left Hallgrimsson in little doubt that as Iceland coach there would be no repeat of his memorable victory over England at Euro 2016.
England took their foot off the accelerator in the second half and Ireland finally showed some signs of life after an hour when lively Ipswich attacker Szmodics fired a shot just wide.
The hosts did not come any closer and England, who gave Angel Gomes and Morgan Gibbs-White their debuts in the last minute, should have scored at least a third goal and finished the game at a comfortable pace.
