Lee Carsley does not want full-time England job

Lee Carsley does not want to be the next long-term England manager, Telegraph Sport has been told.

The Football Association has refused to comment and it is unclear whether Carsley, whose spell as interim head coach is scheduled to end next month has directly informed it that he does not want the full-time job.

In preparation for Sunday’s Nations League game against Finland in Helsinki, Carsley dropped another heavy hint that he is not expecting to take the full-time job, saying: “I don’t see this as an audition. I have got three more games left.”

Telegraph Sport can reveal that Carsley has left members of the England set-up convinced that he does not want to succeed Gareth Southgate on a full-time basis.

It is believed Carsley has not reacted to Thursday night’s defeat by Greece at Wembley and that major doubts over his desire to be considered for the full-time job set in before that game.

Carsley is yet to declare whether he wants the job, while the FA has refused to comment on the process to find a successor to Southgate but there is a growing belief that it will have to look elsewhere. Pep Guardiola the dream choice and Thomas Tuchel, Graham Potter and Eddie Howe are among the leading candidates.

Following the defeat by Greece, Carsley said that he would “hopefully be going back to the Under-21s” after his initial spell as interim manager ended and did not give a definitive answer on whether he wanted the permanent job when he was directly asked on more than one occasion.

Asked to explain what he meant by saying “hopefully” about a return to the Under-21s, Carsley said: “Hopefully is a word and a phrase I use quite a bit. There’s obviously no guarantees in life, including tomorrow.

“It’s a job, the Under-21s, that I’m really proud of and massively invested in. But I know there’s no guarantees. But the plan is to give this job for three camps the best I can do along with the rest of the staff and hopefully we can be in a good position.”

He added: “I wanted to give this job my best shot for three camps. I didn’t want to have any regrets. I think it’s important that we do try something different at times and I think I’ll be a better coach for that, but I think we’ll be a bit more conventional tomorrow night.”

But sources in and around the England set-up had already started to believe that Carsley did not want the job before the defeat by Greece that prompted criticism of his team selection and tactics.

They claim that the feeling around Carsley towards the job had become more negative in the build-up to the Greece game and that there is a growing belief he wants to continue working on his craft at this stage of his coaching career.

That will come as a major surprise to those who believed the FA had always been working towards promoting Carsley from his job as manager of England’s Under-21s.

Carsley has made it clear that he never felt the job was his to lose or turn down, while the FA has never veered from the fact he was put in interim charge for three international breaks, the last of which is next month’s Nations League games against Greece and Ireland.

In the build-up to Sunday’s game against Finland, which will be his fourth as interim head coach, Carsley said: “The last thing that is important to me in this whole process is me. The reason I believe I have done so well in coaching is because people know that it’s not about me. It’s about the players, it’s about the environment, it’s about the culture. If I do try something different, they can see I’m trying it out of trying to get the best out of the team or the individual rather than myself.

“I don’t see this as an audition. I don’t see it as the biggest chance I have ever had. I see it as a privilege. I see it as an unbelievable responsibility. I have got three more games left. I want to try to make sure that the squad are in a really good position, that we have seen different players play in different positions and we are in a healthy position.”