I agree with your article. Although I think it is harsh to call Italy average. They've been very good in this tournament and this is all without their best striker, Rossi.

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Is death really so bad?

Imagine the flaming that Capello would've got for that performance. Yet when it is Roy, the press come flooding forward with excuses as to why it isn't the englishman's fault. Why is it some people seem so immune from criticism? Why did he keep playing Young and Milner who were clearly the two weakest links in the previous games? Why did he let Young take a penalty when his confidence has been shot to pieces this tournament? Cole has looked shakey too.

England have good players. But, IMO they don't have technically gifted players.

Scholes is the player blessed with the most technique but is too old. Wilshere is the only one even like Scholes coming through and untill England gets players that are comfortable on the ball and have the mental capacity to understand that you need to move off the ball to create space for your teammates, they will always be miles behind.

The defence is way to deep and with no one to hold the ball up up-front it invites pressure on. Another problem, how many times did Hart play the ball out of the back ? He didn't, and that's a major problem, the center backs should make themselves available and only if they are not should it be knocked long. However, the biggest problem is the formation, you will not get anywhere in International football playing an out and out 4-4-2.

Lets be fair the Pirlo performance aside the Italians could have had a half dozen goals if they took the many chances they had.

They were better in defence, we were lucky,. Better in midfield, we were outnumbered and better in attack....we were toothless!

'The F.A....it does exactly what it says on the tin'

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Best comment of the day.

I totally agree with the assessment.

IMO the result was more about the tactics employed than the personnel. Roy was utterly predictable in his substitutions...how could he leave the very average and well below par Rooney and Young on when the likes of The Ox and Defoe were waiting in the wings.

A 433 or 4231 or even a 4132 was the way to go last night, if not from the start then at least later in the game as our CM got run ragged.

MAYBE the time he has had with the team has meant that other options have and could not be worked on. Maybe the injuries to the experienced CM meant that we did not have the personnel to play any other way....BUT i would have much rather seen us go down fighting than simply sticking to poor tactics with out of form players in key positions and impact subs left to warm the bench.

It would have been better if we had gone a goal down, at least then we may have taken some risks. Cole crossed the half way line once and we very nearly scored....Italy's FBs were on the end of long diagonal balls 30 m inside our half.

It was more like the england iv'e come to expect so little from over the years, normal service resumed, was also a little surprised to hear gerrard claim they had done the country proud, anyway, justice was done in the end.

JEez. talk about jumping on cliche'd bandwagons.

The main problem we had was that every time we got the ball we tried to rush it up the field for some reason. Not once did the back four pass it around. That's not because of Italian pressure; it's possibly just them trying too hard. who knows. That's why we lost posession so damned quickly