KLP and Co should be proud - Carsley
LEE Carsley believes Keane Lewis-potter and his England Under-21 colleagues should take great heart from their national team selection, at a time when much of the football world are away on their summer holidays.
After a gruelling season with Hull City which saw the 21-year-old play every minute of the Tigers campaign - 4,231 minutes across 47 competitive fixtures to be exact - Lewis-potter added another 15 on Tuesday when he came off the bench late on in the Three Lions’ comprehensive 3-0 success over Albania in Chesterfield and will likely add more before he gets to put his feet up next week.
Though many of Lewis-potter’s City colleagues are enjoying a well-earned break after a demanding season, Carsley says it’s a mark of achievement that his players are still in action, almost 12 months after pre-season began for this campaign.
“I think the players have shown great matureness in the way that they’ve approached this camp,” he said.
“You’ve got to bear in mind half of their mates are on holiday and on beaches, and I’m sure they’re getting updates but these players are committed on playing for England which is a massive thing for us and hopefully we can keep getting the best out of them.”
“You could say that about the whole of this group,” Carsley said of the hard work his players are putting in.
“I’m sure a lot of their friends will be on holiday and a lot of their team-mates will be on holiday and I said to them that ‘if you’re playing football in the summer while everybody else is on holiday, then you should take that as a compliment because that means you’re doing something right.”
Tuesday night’s sixth successive Group G win ensured qualification for next summer’s tournament in Georgia and Romania and Carsley hopes his players can finish with a flourish before starting the next campaign well.
“There’s a lot of positives to take from the campaign, but more importantly, we have to make sure that we finish it off properly and that’s important because this squad deserves it,” he said.
“Ultimately, they’re fighting for their places and if they are going to go to the tournament, that they keep on building their reputations which is something we speak about a lot.”