After three wins from four games as England interim coach, Lee Carsley has appeared to distance himself from taking on the job full time.

Lee Carsley has revealed that he did not formally apply to become the next England manager after Gareth Southgate’s resignation. The Football Association (FA) advertised for a new manager on July 19 with a closing date of August 2.

An image that has clung to Lee Carsley, however cruelly, is of an overpromoted PE master parachuted into an office whose status and symbolism he neither understands nor reveres. In five weeks, he has made his six-game audition to become England’s next long-term manager look less like a chance to be embraced than an ordeal to be endured.