England Under-21s manager Lee Carsley says age was a factor in leaving Chelsea’s Lewis Hall and Manchester City’s Rico Lewis out of his squad for the upcoming European Championship in Georgia and Romania.
Lewis has just won the treble with City, while Hall came into favour towards the end of Chelsea’s season under Frank Lampard’s caretaker stewardship with first-choice left wing-back Ben Chilwell out injured.
Carsley’s 23-man squad included Hall’s Chelsea teammate Levi Colwill, who could meet the group in Georgia late if, as looks increasingly likely, he travels to Malta with the England senior side on Thursday having trained with them all week.
Speaking on Wednesday, Carsley said: “We took Rico’s age into consideration — he’ll have a full campaign next campaign. He’s played a part in City’s success. We gave him the experience in the last camp, in terms of being in and around the U21s.
“Along with Lewis Hall as well, we have to take into consideration the amount of pressure these players have, especially with their age. There’s players at the minute who are potentially ahead of him [Lewis] at the minute.”
Lewis is still 18 until November, and Hall only turns 19 two months before that.
“I’ve probably written down about 20 different squads”, Carsley revealed. “It constantly kept changing. One of the mistakes we’ve made in the past is taking too many players that aren’t playing.
“But we seem to be quite fortunate at the end of this season that, I’d say, 95 per cent of the squad have played a lot of games. We’ve been in a better position and hopefully that will make a difference.”
England into the tournament on the back of two friendly defeats in a row to Croatia and Japan, but in March they hammered France 4-0 in Carsley’s best result since taking the reins in July 2021.
Carsley urged caution, saying: “The game against France, I thought the scoreline was flattering for us. I still came off the pitching going, ‘France are a good team’. I expect France to be right up there in this tournament, along with Germany and Italy.
“If we’re going to win this tournament, we’re going to have to beat all three again in this tournament.”
England are in Group C where they will face the Czech Republic, Israel and defending champions Germany.
