Blame lies soley at the players' door

I thought it would have gone by now but no, it’s still there deep down in the bottom of my stomach and up high at the top of my throat. Over a week after England’s disastrous defeat to Germany, the anger has stayed with me and shows no sign of leaving.

Unlike with previous England debacles, the anger isn’t directed at the opposition, the referee or the manager. No, this year it’s the players that should bear the brunt of every England fan’s anger.

The squad headed for South Africa with a misplaced confidence that they would be in the running to win the tournament. Quite frankly, that now looks embarrassing. With the tournament just days away from its conclusion, it’s already clear that England were woefully short of being good enough to win the world cup.

Let’s not entertain ourselves with internet rumours of unrest in the camp; of playground tales of a divided squad where one group a players holds hands with one senior figure, and the rest hide behind another. And lets not pontificate on whether Wayne Rooney was fully fit, or if Gerrard had personal problems. These are all just parts of a giant smokescreen. The truth is very simple. England were not good enough, and deserved everything they got against the Germans.

Throughout the tournament, England played with little pace, poise or purpose. The players took to the field with an arrogance that I have never before witnessed from an international team. The USA, Algeria and even Germany - yes Germany, winners of three world cups to England’s one and the tournament’s most impressive attacking force - were inexcusably underestimated.

The squad mistook confidence for arrogance, knowhow for experience and belief for unwarranted expectation. The pedestrian performances against the USA and Algeria exposed a collection of individuals who had long ceased with the notion of making their county proud.

Everything about England’s South African adventure - from the moment they left for the finals, to Wayne Rooney’s retort to the booing fans, to the lack of apology to the thousands who travelled to South Africa and the millions at home who endured England’s painful exit in the second round - suggests that the players had only personal ambition on their mind.

There was no camaraderie amongst the players, no rapport with the supporters before or after matches and no sense of enjoyment. When it became clear that winning the world cup was actually going to be more than a walk in the park, the England team look bewildered. Desperately short of creativity, they laboured through all 360 minutes of their world cup campaign. They looked in genuine shock that they couldn’t sweep aside international defences with the ease that Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool usually dispense with the premier league’s many also-rans.

Predictably, England’s only response to Germany’s superior technique and tactics was to run faster. In John Terry’s case, this even stretched to running as fast as he could (which is probably walking pace for most of the other players in South Africa) to the opposition’s penalty area when England had a throw in. Terry proceeded to lose the ball and was then helplessly out of position as the Germans broke at pace and put England out of their misery.

Terry was obviously not alone in performing poorly in South Africa. Notably, Wayne Rooney was abysmal too. And that’s not “by his own high standards” abysmal - as most commentators have remarked - he was just plain abysmal. Carragher, Upson, Johnson, Heskey, Lennon, Lampard, Green, James, Wright-Phillips - the list is inexplicably long. In truth, only really Ashley Cole performed to anything like his ability, and is the one player who returned from the finals with any pride in tact.

My anger does not come from the fact that we haven’t won the world cup - I never expected us to - it comes from the fact that the players approached the task of trying to do so with such a presumptuous attitude. They seemed to believe that by saying they will win the world cup, it would somehow magically happen. As if being from the premier league is enough, and outthinking your opponent is unnecessary. It wasn’t enough, and England were found to have counted the proverbial chickens before they had hatched.

So what next for England? In August, they play a friendly against Hungary and it remains to be seen what kind of reception they will get from England supporters. The hurt will still be there, but so too will the optimism - the hope that this time, they’ll get it right and all will be forgiven. Surely Capello’s only hope of rewarding that optimism is to lay waste to the old guard, and start afresh?