Please don't tell me "we were beaten by a world-class striker"...
Yes, Luis Suarez is a world-class striker and, yes, when utterly inept, schoolboy defending handed him two wonderful chances on a platter, he took them the way you would expect a world-class striker to do.
But that hardly tells the whole story ... or even part of it.
England went into this World Cup with low expectations and we have certainly fulfilled them. Watching England play is, on the whole, a depressing - not to mention frustrating - experience. Frankly we look light years behind top teams in terms of quality and basic footballing ability.
There was a time when we at least had a good defence, and were known for it. We didn't perhaps score as freely as some of the 'flair' nations (and that was sometimes our undoing) but we were hard to beat. Now, let's be honest, every time our opponents are coming forward with the ball we sit on the edge of our seats in fear and trepidation. Our defenders no longer tackle effectively (without clumsily fouling), they no longer head the ball with conviction, and their sense of positional play is almost non-existent.
This lack of basic footballing ability (among defenders) is also our undoing when going forward (although you seldom hear the 'pundits' talk about this). The way international football is played nowadays you need defenders who are comfortable on the ball and creative with it. You could have the best midfield in the world (which we don't by a long stretch) but if you don't have defenders who play their part in attack, moving the ball at pace and helping create space and openings, you will always struggle - as England do.
There's not a lot of point criticising Roy Hodgson (even if you think he has made mistakes and opted for the wrong line-ups as, personally, I do) because the problem is far, far bigger than one man's capacity to solve. And yet when the inquests and the moaning follow on the back of an early exit what will happen? Next to nothing.
There is something very, very wrong with the English game. We have - we are told - a very good 'product' in the Premier League. Huge, almost incomprehensible amounts of money are swilling about in the domestic game and yet clearly not to the benefit of domestic footballing talent.
In India the Indian Premier League is a highly marketable, successful form of Twenty20 cricket. The league has rules that not only limit the number of foreigners teams can have in the their squads and on the field of play, but also requires teams to have a certain number of emerging, young Indian players in their squads. Of course the overseas players thrill the crowds, but Indian players get plenty of opportunity to develop their game. In other words, here is one financial gravy train that is actually set up to try and improve domestic one-day cricket in India. And it seems to be working.
Now someone will say "but football is just not cricket". What's more, EU regulations on free working practices would not allow such restrictions to be placed on English football teams (if that's true, there's at least one good good reason to be out of the EU, perhaps...!).
At the end of the day, however, there just doesn't seem to be the will at club level, or the clout at national, administrative level to really do something about it. Perhaps too much of the money in the English game comes from abroad. Arguably the last time purely English money transformed a club was when Jack Walker's fortune turned Blackburn Rovers into a champion-challenging outfit in the mid-1990s. Look at the proportion of British players in the starting line-ups of the leading teams back then. An internet search into how such clubs as Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, AC Milan, Barcelona and Real Madrid are set up and run today provides interesting, sobering reading.
I could go on but, to be honest, I don't know what the answer is. Nothing guarantees ultimate success, of course. Only one nation can win the World Cup, which happens only every four years - and there are a number of great footballing nations out there. But we want to see England at least competing; at least at the 'top table' of nations who have a chance. Greg Dyke has been ridiculed for coming in and advocating major changes. I have no axe to grind for or against him - but he, or anyone else for that matter, has a huge task if things are ever going to be turned around.
Personally I can't see it at the moment. The richer English clubs will continue to buy short term success and will continue to line the wallets of overseas players, who now constitute the vast majority of starting line-ups in those successful teams. In the meantime, we will go on wishing - fruitlessly - that we had a national team that could stand alongside the stronger footballing nations of the world.
