Where do you start with England?
Hindsight is a very easy thing to call upon, especially when everyone starts saying ‘what if?’ we had done this and ‘what if?’ we’d done that.
There were a few fundamental things for me, however, which stood out in our abject exit from Euro 2016.
Firstly, I like Roy Hodgson. He is a gentleman, a decent guy and his record shows he’s a good manager.
If there is one weakness, however, in Hodgson’s make-up it’s his blind faith in certain players (it happens with a lot of managers, too).
Sir Alex Ferguson was the best manager in the world and one of the biggest reasons was that if he made a mistake, he would correct it almost immediately.
Major signings would disappear out of the club within six months if they didn’t meet his mark.
Most managers, however, if they make a mistake, try to justify it by playing a player over and over when they should be getting rid.
I was surprised Raheem Sterling was even on the plane, while Daniel Sturridge wasn’t even near the squad with a month to go. Then he scores a great goal in the Europa League final and suddenly he is there.
Those two, for starters, are flat-track bullies – not players who are going to grind it out when required.
To be fair to the five Tottenham players, they play with such intensity week in and week out that they looked like it was one game too many.
All five looked like they had had their balloon pricked and none of them could raise a gallop.
Then you look at Joe Hart.
He has not been put under any pressure at Manchester City for the last four or five years – and it showed on the big stage.
I don’t understand why he wasn’t dropped for the previous match against Slovakia as a ‘kick up the backside’ and, in the tournament as a whole, he had three shots to save and let two of them through his hands.
When it comes to the centre-backs, Cahill and Smalling are as good as we’ve got, but they are both defenders who have grown up with a leader next to them.
You don’t get a feeling that either of them have matured into that leader themselves.
Of all the things which have been said since our 2-1 defeat to Iceland, I think Jamie Carragher’s comments made me sit up and take notice the most.
He reckons the Academy system in the game is producing weak-minded young players – he says you don’t get many ‘men’ coming through the Academies.
And when you reflect, not one of the England team showed the sort of mental strength you would want, someone who was going to change things on the pitch by taking it by the scruff of the neck.
That makes me think Carragher is probably spot on.
There just aren’t the hard characters coming through who are going to grab someone by the throat, and do it for nothing.
If you had asked anyone in the Iceland camp the one person they would not have wanted to face in an England shirt and they would all have given you the same answer – Jamie Vardy.
He didn’t come through the Academy system and the one thing he has is blind enthusiasm.
He runs around like a schoolboy, and that’s what makes him so special.
Technically he is not as gifted as most of the squad, but he stands out. He would have absolutely frightened Iceland to death and been a pest for 90 minutes.
I could go on and fill the entire website and newspaper, but that’s enough off my chest for one day!
