More In Sadness Than Anger

England's ignominious exit from Euro 2016 will have provoked a wide range of emotions among the nation's football supporters. From anger and horror to shock and astonishment, England fans will have run the gamut of emotions from A to Z, and some, like me, will have felt resignation, very little surprise and, it has to be said, a certain amount of indifference. After all, we've seen it all before, even though this time round defeat to Iceland was plumbing depths previously not seen since USA beat England 1-0 in 1950.

France 2016 followed pretty much the normal course for England's progress at a major tournament. They were barely troubled in qualifying, winning ten out of ten, but it was hardly a challenging group. Then inevitably there was the launch of the new England kit, and this time, despite some fierce competition from previous efforts, it proved to be almost universally disliked and proved once again that marketing new kits and extracting the last penny from long-suffering English fans remains one of the Football Association's most consistent achievements.

Be honest, did anyone like the new kit?

The first game of the competition, a 1-1 draw with Russia, was followed by some predictable comments from management, players and pundits about "taking positives" out of the game. Sadly, as ever, these 'positives' were not translated into any tangible improvement.

Roy Hodgson - looking for positives.

The win over Wales papered over some cracks, but came only because Hodgson threw caution to the winds and played the second half with four forwards. Inspired substitutions or desperation? Charitably the pundits erred on the side of the former, but nothing could disguise the disquiet over Joe Hart's less than impressive attempt at saving Gareth Bale's long-range free-kick.

The 0-0 draw with Slovakia was perhaps predictable as England rotated their squad, but while Glenn Hoddle, co-commentating on ITV, optimistically continued to maintain that England would come good as they were "totally dominant," the team huffed and puffed with little fluency against a side whose sole ambition was not to concede. It did not bode well for the knock-out stages, whoever England came up against.

Glenn Hoddle, poised to state the obvious.

But England were through, and with a tie in the last sixteen of this over- inflated competition against Iceland to look forward to. Despite England's struggles, a game against the smallest nation at the championships ought not to have presented too great an obstacle for them. Fortunately, I did not see the game - I was at the BBC watching a recording of the radio comedy, Clare In The Community -and it wasn't until I got home that I checked the score. 

I was watching Clare In The Community...

...meanwhile, this was happening. Photograph: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images.

England 1, Iceland 2, it said, and my reaction was not of shock, not of anger, but of resignation. Really, no one ought to be surprised at England's failure in the knock-out stages of a major tournament because since 1966, they have won just six games after the groups at World Cups and European Championships, and one of those (against Spain in 1996) was on penalties. In fact that win over Spain at Wembley is the only knock-out game that England have won at European Championship finals. Not that England's record in group matches is anything to write home about; twenty-two wins and thirteen defeats in fifty-three games in fifty years. Translate that into a Premier League season and it's a mid-table finish.

So when anyone analyses England's performance at Euro 2016 and asks, "What went wrong?" the answer is surely, "Nothing; this was the norm." The more salient question is what can be done about it? I'm not sure I have the answers any more than anyone else, but I have to ask why Jack Wilshere (three league appearances in 2015-16, two of which were as a substitute) was preferred to Danny Drinkwater or Mark Noble. Or why Harry Kane was taking corners (or free-kicks for that matter). And why do England persist in picking eleven individuals and trying to shoehorn them into a formation (Jamie Vardy as a wide man) rather than selecting the players best suited to a pre-determined system? At one time England were supposed to be competing with the likes of Germany, Italy or Spain; those nations are now streets ahead of us and our natural level now is with the likes of Wales and Iceland . And while those two nations played as teams at Euro 2016, England looked like a scratch side assembled in a pub on a Saturday night and playing their first game together the next morning. That impression was reinforced by the shambolic defending and catastrophic goalkeeping that enabled Iceland to plunder their goals.

At Under-21 level, England are European champions, but few of the current squad are household names and despite the majority of the squad being on the books of English Premier League teams, have relatively few senior appearances between them. Premier League clubs prefer proven talent and are not concerned with its nationality as the preponderance of overseas players in the Premier League shows. The UK's decision to leave the European Union might mean a reduction in the numbers of foreign players in English football, an outcome that the FA ought to welcome as an opportunity to develop young, English talent. But since we all know that the priorities of the top clubs are their success on the  pitch and the balance sheet, not developing talent for the national team, there will no doubt be lobbying on their behalf to maintain their access to the overseas talent pool.

This month the FA celebrate England's 1966 World Cup win, a triumph that increasingly becomes a millstone with each passing year. On the FA's website, chief executive Martin Glenn said: “30 July 1966 was a pinnacle point not just in our football history, but as a nation. We all want to repeat the high of 1966.” And FA chairman Greg Dyke is quoted as saying, “We have an exciting future ahead, and we’re all determined to give the game the best-possible chance to flourish." Words are cheap and as ever, the promise is "jam tomorrow." But what action will there be? FA boss Greg Dyke seems obsessed with the idea of introducing Premier League reserve teams into Football League competitions with some bizarre expectation that this will develop the players who will turn England into a world footballing power. His B-team plan may have bitten the dust, but the Football League are ploughing ahead with Under-23 teams in the Football League Trophy, a move that has more to do with bowing to the wishes of the Premier League teams than developing the national team.

The Guardian had it spot on.

No doubt the FA, the (new) manager and the players will claim that lessons will be learned from the shambles in France, but history proves that we've not learned from previous and similar debacles. The chances of England repeating their 1966 performance is slim; in my lifetime, nonexistent and I say that more with sadness than anger.