England boss admits he had no qualms about throwing in Wigan Athletic starlet

Tickle made his debut for the Young Lions in midweek in the 7-0 victory over Luxembourg at Bolton's Tough Sheet Stadium.

Having been an unused substitute against Azerbaijan at the weekend, Tickle stepped up after first choice James Trafford was called up to the senior squad as cover for the injured Sam Johnstone.

And he went home with the perfect memento - a clean sheet - having become only the second product of the Latics Academy to play for England Under-21s while still a Wigan player, after Leighton Baines two decades ago.

“It's always difficult when it's last minute as Traff got called up," assessed Carsley. "But maybe not having such a long build up suits you.

"I watched Sam play for Wigan at Peterborough a couple of months ago under real pressure, and he was able to stand up to it.

"So I was confident he would be capable of playing and he showed that."

Tickle's ascent has been little short of meteoric, having only made his league debut for Wigan in the final game of last season against Rotherham.

Carsley, though, admitted he had long been identified as a 'player of interest'

“He's been on the radar for a couple of years," said Carsley. "That's one of the beauties of the talent ID department - players rarely come out of the blue.

"The goalkeeping department have an in depth way of monitoring goalkeepers from such an early age so he's just another one.

Carsley also confirmed Tickle's had no issues in rubbing shoulders with a squad made up almost exclusively of elite club sides.

“Sam has been absolutely fine," added Carsley. "He's been with us for a few camps and he deserves his place.

"He trains really well every day and it's great he has got a cap."

After the rout of Azerbaijan in Baku on Friday, Carsley's side have racked up 12 goals in two games despite missing around 10 players through injury or call-ups to the senior side.

"One of the beauties of doing the Under-21s job which is different to a club side is sometimes when you make substitutions you are almost going like-for-like in terms of quality," added Carsley.

"We have some outstanding players...some who didn't get in the squad because of injuries, and the Under-20s squad is strong as well.

"They have done so well reputation-wise to show what they are capable of.

"This was a camp I found quite difficult to plan in terms of how much training to do, how much recovery to do, how much tactical to do and try to get the balance in making sure they had some fun as well.

"I didn't think we were as good as I'd have hoped out of possession...they hit the post and the bar so if we were to look at anything we'd look at our shape out of possession.

"We didn't have that much time to work on what they might do, so there is always stuff we can improve on.

"To get the two really positive performances and results is a real bonus."