Agreed.

I am surprised by all the moaning, people should expect nothing less from England who have been flops for the last 30+ years. Unfortunately many get swept up and dare to dream!!! That being said, I watched it last night because I knew it would give me a good moan. Mrs BritBob hates me watching England play.

Our players apart from the rare one or two have always lacked skill. We play such dull and useless tactics. We can't pass, we can't retain the ball, we hoof and hope. It doesn't matter who manages the team, if the players lack the skills and basic ones for that matter we'll alway be flops.

Time to pack away the tacky St George paraphernalia for another time!

I find it baffling that anyone would watch the whole game, but switch off for the penalties. How odd?

I think the reason why people are being negative is they cannot understand why the nation with the greatest football wealth in the world consistently produces sub-standard crap like we do at international level. Not many positives really are there all things considered? Should a country like this, with the countless millions that are poured into it be happy being the 7th or 8th best side out there? No, and rightly so. If we could see progression then I'm sure people could swallow it a bit easier, but it's the same excuses every few years. The same deficiencies on the pitch. The same outcome. We always hear that we will learn from this, but we never do. Next time round it'll be the same again no doubt.

As for being happy with how far England progressed? I don't buy into that belief. It's that sort of "it's the taking part that counts" philosophy that has done this country no good whatsoever over the last few decades, and that's not just restricted to sport.

I want to win. As I knew England had no chance, then I'd honestly rather we weren't even there at all.

I think if were to win something in the next 50 years things obviously have to improve. I like how tight we were a times midfield defending but the odd kick and rush would give players like welbeck better chance going forward. The lads at work are of the same opinions as two. Parker impressed me he did a job as did terry cole and hart Gerrard Man of tornament for england. The rest we know on there day would have set the tornament on fire. We lack midfield charge we can hold well in defence I hope the world cup qualifiers introduce a few more tallents. Need a lynchpin like a zidane type between rooney and parker.

To add when was england last golden boot ? was it Lineker 90 or A Al in Euro 96 . ??

Standard Leedslad contribution to anything.

Care to add any substance to this, or are you just leaving it at that?

This is England we are talking about

I just couldn't face watching another penalty shootout defeat. In my opinion, the outcome was inevitable even before a ball was kicked in the shootout.

I agree entirely, but even I watched it despite the fact we were probably going to bottle it.

It was different this time though. We all knew England were miles away from any chance of winning this thing, and given what a battering last night was, a penalty win would have seemed almost wrong, and would only have prolonged to inevitable for a few more days.

What Brummie did sounds familiar, however I usually switch off, after about 20 minutes, sometimes I make it till half time. This time I didn't bother from the start. Did watch as an interested neutral, a number of the other matches, but England

TV audience for last nights game 23.2 million highest TV audience for anything for 8 years (since Euro 2004 England v Portugal). No country in the world gives their team as much support as England. Sometimes I think you can see the weight of expectation on the players shoulders and perhaps is one reason for our under performance in the last 40 years.

   Exactly.

I never got carried away, never thought we had a chance of winning. I also don't just moan and be negative for the sake of it.

But you've hit the nail on the head. Why can't England produce players good enough to win the Euros/World Cup? Especially when the Premier League is the richest league in the world.

That's what narks me.

Superb figures, but the reason is purely footballing. England, for whatever reason, are nowhere near good enough.

Oh, I don't know about that. At Italia 90 when Italy went out, the Ities saw their suicide rate rocket as all the mummies' boy greaseballs wept openly.

I understand the thinking behind this 'richest league in the world' line and I do agree. The problem with that is that the clubs can then afford to bring in the best players in the world and our English talent ends on loan to championship clubs before playing bit parts with their parent big club.

If you picked the top 3 or 4 players in all top 6 clubs, how many Englishmen would you pick? Honestly?

I know it should breed talent as our kids should try harder and become better, but I just don't think it's working

There's the additional problem of the top tier of English players generally having a financial disincentive to move to an overseas club, meaning that our best players all only have experience of playing in one League generally playing one style of football. Yes, there's a handful of ECL/Eu-loser League games each season, but it's nowhere near the same as being immersed in the footballing culture of another country's league on a day to day basis for a few years.

Even Spain, the second richest (?) league in the world, has some of its top players with experience in other leagues (Silva, Alonso, Fabregas, Torres). I can only think of Beckham & Owen as recent England internationals who've moved to an overseas club (Hargreaves was different, growing up outside the UK, whilst Joe Cole was way outside the England squad before his loan move to France, although it'll be interesting to see how he goes this season as Rodgers is bringing him back into the Anfield fold)

Funnily enough, I made the same point as you about the wealth of the Prem acting against the interests of the England national team earlier in the thread (or maybe in another thread) and was rudely told I was speaking rubbish.

I had to reduce my figure by 1 after remembering I couldn't include Gerrard, cos Liverpool finished 8th last year

But I reckon 3 or 4 overall (Hart, Rooney, Terry, perhaps Wilshere, maybe Ferdinand? Parker?) plus Welshie Bale

FWIW, it's probably got a lot to do with what Chris Waddle has ranted about on more than one occasion; too many players lack the basic footballing skills- controlling and passing the ball. I always remember what he said when he blew his top on BBC 5 Live after England got hammered by the Germans at the last World Cup;
"The amount of money in our league is frightening, yet we waste it on rubbish!"

The Premier League maybe the richest league in the world, but being the richest doesn't necessarily mean it's the best. Look at Germany- the Bundesliga doesn't get a greta deal of rave reviews, but on the evidence of the last few years, their players seem to be muich better technically than most English/British players. For me, the best football I've ever seen on a week-to-week basis was Italy's Serie A in the early-mid 90's during the first few years of Channel 4's Sunday afternoon coverage of its gmes. I believe that at the time, Serie A was the richest in the world, but for me the quality of football in that league back then was of a far higher standard than anything the Premier League in England has produced in recent years. For me, the problem is that money had got too much of a stranglehold on the game in the last 15-2o years, and many chairmen and managers only think about the short-term rather than the long-term.

That may be true, but if you watch these players in training or when just mucking about, they seem to have a huge amount of skill - whether that be controlling, passing, just looking comfortable on the ball. It seems to be a sort of mindset in matches. They look scared when they get the ball and an opponent closes them down, or if they receive the ball when an opponent is close by. I saw both Wellbeck & Milner get passes in these situations several times and, after controlling, would then try to knock the ball past the opposition player and run after it, or try a hit'n'hope flick. Most times it was blocked and possession lost. They weren't the only culprits, but I seemed to notice it most with these two.

In contrast, Most time the Italians (or Ukrainians, Swedes or French before them) seemed to be much more comfortable receiving the ball and would lose it far less often.

The only time England players looked comfortable and with time on the ball is when they were passing it around the back 5 when the opposition weren't pressing them.

I think there are a million and one reasons why England fail at tournaments. I think there is a case for letting the youngsters have more of a go in the World Cup qualifiers. I'm really looking forward to the Olympic football as we should get to see how good they are. The likes of Smalling, Sturridge, Caulker, McEachran, Rose, Walker, Rodwell, Lansbury, Wilshere if fit and a few more. There is plenty of talent coming through.

You could have written that at virtually anytime since 1966 (swapping the overseas national teams as required) with the possible exception of 1990. Blaming it all on the premier league is rubbish. I heard people saying the same about lack of basic skills in English footballers during the 1980s. England were left behind with the arrival of total football, not the premier league, and haven't since caught up. What always makes me laugh is when armchair pundits say player X, or player Y was playing out of position etc. If they're so good they should be able to fit into the team system. Managers and tactics make a marginal difference, but if you've not got the basic abilities required no amount of shuffling of the cards will make much difference.

My much earlier post rambled on about much more than blaming the Prem. I highlighted past development methods that were outdated compared to the continental style of football which evolved from the 70's onwards. I must say that the direction that FIFA has taken football in terms of the physicality has handicapped the British way of playing much more than any other nation, too.

But it's undeniable that the riches of the Premier League has had a huge influence - in terms of both the dearth of opportunities for English players at top clubs (caused by too many foreign players) and the tiny number of English players who play in other countries.

The last time England got beyond the quarter-final stage of a major tournament was when they hosted Euro 96, four years after the coming of the PL. IIRC, that England side still had a few players in it from the team that ran W Germany so close in the semis at World Cup 90 (Gazza, Stuart Pearce, David Platt come to mind- possibly Tony Adams as well, although I can't recall for sure if he played at Italia 90 or not).

During the first 5 years or so of the PL, although overseas players were starting to become more in number, most of the top teams in England still had a good number of English players in their sides. The factor that I feel has been overlooked by many here is the Bosman ruling of 1995, which got rid of transfer fees for players that were out of contract at their club and wanted to move elsewhere. Also, it forced UEFA to scrap the "three foreigners" rule that hitherto had been in place for the various European competitions. Once this happened, clubs had greater freedom to sign larger numbers of foreign players and they knew that they could play an unlimited number of overseas players in European ties since the three foreigner rule had been scrapped. When the rule was still in place, there was less point in signing large numbers of foreign players because in European ties, they couldn't play more than three at anyone time.

IMO, the one thing that had seriously disadvantaged homegrown players in England apart from the PL has been the Bosman ruling, but I think in many ways that homegrown players in many countries throughout Europe have been disadvantaged by it as well.

What a wate of talent leaving Defoe on the bench, much as we did at Tottenham all season.  Seeing a lethargic and useless Rooney waltz back into the side and then retain his place after playing so poorly just about sums things up!

I agree absolutely. Defoe always seems like a player who can turn a game. I presume he's been only a bit-part player for both spurs and England because he's not the best at tracking back and putting in the hard yards in defensive duties?

To me, he needs to leave Spurs for a team who'll give him a regular starting place, or his career (already in its twilight) will fizzle out to nothing.

Spain are actually playing a striker not Torres but Negredo. I hope Portugal win tonight but I expect Spain to be to good for them. I think only Germany are good enough to beat them.