Lee Carsley confident of improvement from England Under-21s
Harvey Elliott and Jonathan Rowe had struck either side of the break put Carsley's on the front foot in Dunajska Streda.
Daniel Fila, though, swiftly reduced the deficit in the 50th minute, before England defender Charlie Cresswell headed in a third from a corner with 15 minutes left to settle any late nerves at the MOL Arena.
The Young Lions had beaten Spain two years ago to win the European title for a third time, but travelled to Slovakia without the likes of Liam Delap and Jobe Bellingham who will be at the Club World Cup.
Top performance, Tino! 💪 pic.twitter.com/vxMseFnQpq
— England (@England) June 12, 2025
Carsley, though, feels the opening Group B win showed plenty to build on – with Newcastle defender Tino Livramento producing a player-of-the-match display, his surging runs down the left causing plenty of problems and helping set up Rowe's near-post flick soon after the restart.
'Our expectations are always to do well,' Carsley said to UEFA.com.
'The realisation is that is the first time that team has played together. Some of them are in different positions, so our expectation was not to put too much pressure on the players and that, at times, it would look a bit scruffy.
'In the second half, we maybe didn't have as much control as we would like to play with and went a bit longer too quickly, but they should take a lot of credit – not only the players who started the game, but also those who came on.'
Full-time in Dunajská Streda.
England won 3:1 in the opening match of the #U21EURO. pic.twitter.com/g6xYgoJomj
— Czech Football National Team (@ceskarepre_eng) June 12, 2025
Carsley will now regroup the squad to next face Slovenia in Nitra on Sunday, with their last group fixture on June 18 against Germany, who beat Slovenia 3-0 in Thursday night's other match.
'I definitely expect us to keep improving, the longer we can stay in the tournament,' said Carsley, who had seen his side fail to pick up victories in their last two warm-up matches against the Netherlands and Spain, alongside a 5-3 defeat to France in March.
'The next two days are very important in terms of our recovery and preparation for the Slovenia game.
'There is definitely no way we will be overlooking Slovenia, because we have seen a lot of them and they are a good, well organised team.'
Harvey Elliott's tenth U21 goal ⚽️#U21EURO pic.twitter.com/IR7EwgmlYC
— UEFA Men's Youth (@UEFAMensYouth) June 12, 2025
Liverpool winger Elliott believes the players can take confidence from their 'incredible start' to the tournament.
The 22-year-old said: 'It is one of the most important games to get off to a flyer.
'We did that against tough opponents who caused us problems at times, but the boys dug deep and controlled the game towards the end.
'It was an incredible performance and we need to build, recover and go again.'
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