Why it's not the end of the World for England

WE are out of the World Cup football is not coming home once again but sadly England are after their final group game with Costa Rica on Tuesday.

Inevitably it took less than 10 minutes before the post-mortem began, we have held so many now you think we would prepare them in advance.

‘We should have picked Terry’, ‘Ashley Cole should have gone’, ‘It’s all Roy Hodgson’s fault’ and ‘They don’t seem to care’ are just some of the comments I have seen.

Yet no one seems have to have noticed we have lost narrowly to the teams ranked seventh (Uruguay) and ninth (Italy) in the FIFA rankings – England are tenth by the way.

The truth of the matter is against Italy, a cavalier England were ruthlessly exposed down one side by a nation which makes a living on the tactical side of the game.

And against Uruguay, the South Americans had two shots on target and scored with both, England had several and scored with one. It twas always thus in football…

You have to wonder how the game would have panned out had Godin been shown a second yellow card for his arm/slap on Daniel Sturridge after the blatant handball.

That is not an excuse, watch the game again and see how many times Godin is involved in defensive situations.

Defensively, England have been dreadful in this tournament and rightly punished but going forward the team have a youthful zest and vigour not seen for a long while.

And I don’t remember Roy Hodgson ever saying we would win the World Cup, nor any of the players for that matter so let’s nail some of these criticisms of Hodgson and the team.

‘We should have picked Terry, he’s a leader’ – John Terry voluntarily gave up the chance to represent his country and anyone watching the Premier League this year will know that against pacey strikers he was often found wanting.

‘Ashley Cole should have gone’ – Ashley Cole couldn’t get into a Chelsea team which nearly won the Premier League this year so why should he start as first choice left back for the national team?

‘It’s all Roy Hodgson’s fault’ – After every major tournament we call for youth and a new approach, Roy did just that after Euro 2012 and slowly introduced the likes of Shaw, Sterling, Lallana and Berkley. Yet now he stands accused of doing too much too soon and ignoring experience at his peril.

No wonder we label it the ‘hardest job in the country’ because he cannot win whatever he does.

Hodgson remains the best man for the job, a coach who has travelled the world and knows more about the world game than any other ‘English’ coach.

Perhaps if we as a nation stop calling the bloated, arrogant and money laden Premier League ‘the best in the world’ and realise we have no god given right to win anything then the work of getting back to the top can truly begin.