Not really. Terry being out of position led to the opposition getting chances and also playing them onside. Same against Ukraine when he cleared off the line it was his fault in the first place. And he got battered by zlatan.

Spot on. England don't have the qualities going forward that are required and Roy will have to find the players who do but our defensive organisation is as good as any and our defenders top quality.

yes you know nothing knob.

England relative to population & wealth still worst footballing nation on earth. Continued lack of technique = embarrassing. Evidence was apparent these Euro’s. Outplayed by France and Ukraine in the group stages, England gave a reasonable impression of a Greece or Switzerland at best. Pathetic and most importantly unlikely to change until the country makes massive changes at the youth level. Compare and contrast with Germany. Since 2000 when Germans failed at Euro’s in 2000 they have spent 80/90 million Euro’s per year on youth development, coaching and facilities. England despite wealth of EPL have done virtually nothing. The EPL’s TV rights are now worth over 1 Billion Pounds per year (including overseas revenue). Where is the visionary stating the obvious? Some of that money has to be channeled into a complete re-organisation of the game at the grass-roots level. England’s best hope is that a technically capable player like Jack Wilshere becomes the rule and not the exception in ten plus years time. It is possible. 10-12 years ago it looked like the footballing world had caught up with Germany. (Every team displayed the qualities of organisation and strength and stamina in which Germany had excelled for a generation.) Look at them now. Were it not for an incredible Spain they’d be right back at the top.

I thought Terry was one of our best players.

England need likes of WIlshere and Cleverley to excel. Please Stevie G and Scott Parket shud attend classes petaining to "ball posession and it's effective use"

@Jazza "England relative to population & wealth still worst footballing nation on earth" I wouldnt say so - we do well, we win, we draw we rarely lose until a tournament final stages. Sure we're not Spain or Germany but its the ridiculous ego of our fandom that thinks cant look at England objectively. Even the dutch flopped, France blew up 2 years ago and still havent fully recovered. Face it - we arent as shit as we think we are. Unfortunately we're not as good as we want to be either.

It really wasn't complicated. England needed to close down Pirlo. If they had done that, they could have stopped Italy playing. Instead, they let Pirlo do whatever he wanted. Overall, it was a pathetic, schoolboy-esque performance. There was minimal effort from the vast majority of the team and England relied on luck and poor finishing by the Italians. In spells, England did cause Italy some difficulties, but rather than press and try to ask further questions of the Italian defence and exploit its weaknesses, they simply acted like scared little boys and refused to even try to go forward. Essentially, England were playing for penalties which was very foolish given England's record.

The only man to blame for the england loss is the manager, he made several wrong decisions in his team selection and his substitutions. Wayne Rooney was never fit and never would be for this tournament, he managed about 25 minutes of doing what the manager asked him to do, namely keep tabs on pirlo, before he was too knackered to be bothered to carry on. Either not pick him or at least substitute him and leave the fitter player on the pitch. The italians created problems down englands left all night, so what does mr hodgson do, he substitutes the defensively strong midfielder and leaves on the weakest left sided midfielder ever to play for england. i wonder if his player dossier contained the fact that james milner started both his football career and his england career as a left sided midfielder. What he should have done was get Ashley Young as far away from the pitch as possible and swap Milner over to the other side. And before people start saying he never does anything for the team, people need to remember that players like him need to be in the team to let the flair players do what they can do. For every Paul Gascoigne in the team there was a David Batty playing next to him doing all the hard yards. Andy Carroll should have either played from the start or come on for rooney. He came on and he almost did exactly what he was supposed to do, win the ball, keep it then pass it. The only problem was that Rooney or any one else was too knackered to be there for him to pass it to, England lost the ball cheaply and then Italy were on the attack again.

riiiight and how many shots at goal did Italy muster last night - are you kidding me?? defence sucked massive shit balls.

@gos totally agree with you. Terry is too slow and not good enough. Watch the games as a neutral and you'll see! So he made a few blocks big deal!

It's about time someone told the truth instead of inventing lame fucking excuses.The England team are supposed to be the country's best players.They're all amazing athletes with incredible skills.Last night they played like a Sunday league team and deserved to lose.It's that simple.The idea there's so many armchair experts analysing the game is bollocks.They're bunch of blokes that were lucky enough to have a modicam of God given talent and they wasted it.The players are to blame.No one else.Their whole life is devoted to football.They don't do anything else.They're not part time.Surely they should be amazing everytime they play.That's what they're paid fortunes to do.Be amazing.Nothing less.Last night they were shit.

What on earth are you on about? England arent a top 2 side - dont expect to see us in a final. We're not top 4 so dont look forward to a semi. Top 8? yeah pretty much - so we went out in the Quarters - i'd say thats about right. In fact, better than that considering the manager's relatively new and the team cobbled together recently. We should be proud of achieveing what we could. Its not like a few years ago where we were woefully sub-standard given the players available, manager etc. English fans need to accept our actual international level - we're not world beaters

Hodgson chose, with the exception of Ferdinand, to play most of the same losers as previous managers instead of bringing in some fresh talent. Why did he take Jagielka and Baines among others, and not give them a chance? Two cert penalty takers at least!!!

England wasn't at its best and were missing a lot of vital players for 1 reason or other, mostly through injury like Wilshere, Bent (although welbeck has profited from it), cleverley, cahill... i think we did very well to get through the group and as leaders. But we managaed it because of our tactics and because defensively we are a very strong team but the way we played isnt the way foward. we cannot play long balls to a strong striker and expect to carry on from there. we have very good wingers both fast and technical and we need to use that also we have young players who can play the ball like Wilshere and Cleverley and need to get them more involved. i would like our line-up to be something like this: HART WALKER/G.JOHNSON-TERRY-CAHILL/SMALLING-A.COLE WILSHERE-BARRY A.JOHNSON/WALCOTT-MILNER-A.YOUNG ROONEY

If Balotelli had taken his chances England would have been 2 down in the first half alone and you can point directly at Terry for both opportunities. Look at the film and you will see how out of position he was on both break away chances. He is far to slow and if not for Gerrard and Parker protecting his slower than molasses backside he would have been far more exposed against the feeble French and to cool for school Swedes. Terry is finished as a top defender and his last ditch tackles wont save him next season.. Stick him with a fork, he's done boys!!

You are delusional if you believe that Wilshere would have dramatically improved this England team. The manager would have had to revert to a 4-3-3 to allow him to be effective and he much prefers to play close to the CH's which wouldn't have suited this poor team that required holding mf players of a defensive / mature nature to protect what is a very ave back line, Cole aside...