Mkhitaryan and Ibrahimovic will be wrapped up in the next week or two, I suspect.

As for 'abject misery', I'd politely suggest that you get a grip.

How can you compare Rashford with Hart?

But I agree that he looked decent when he came on, the only thing is I'm sure at every tournament there's a youngster who gets the odd 10 -15 minutes and looks good but as soon as he becomes a fully fledged England player we turn them to shit.

I really wanted the national team to do well, but instead they performed woefully in every single match, how am I supposed to feel after watching such performances??
I am sorry for putting my heart into wanting to see us do well, but I just keep on being let down by them, which just leaves me with so many bad feelings about them.

As for the transfers, that is what I hope to see, sooner rather than too much later.

How can you feel "let down" by England if they're minnows, who came up against Iceland, who were favourites? To be let down would suggest you had higher hopes.

You can feel let down by performance levels, it doesn't have to be about being the favourites or not, big team or minnows, it is about wanting your team to do well, and then them not doing so, that is being let down.

I also wanted them to do well. However, I've been watching England for 30-odd years. It's always the same. You hope that this will be the year that it all clicks, but realistically, you know that it won't be.

England's biggest problem is the mental issue. They just can't handle it, and it's always been the same. Doesn't matter who the manager is, or which players are selected.

You only have to listen to the Spanish players talking about their mentality, pre-2008.

But if they're minnows and come up against a team considered favourites that's not being let down. Being let down is effect expecting better than the actual result. You can't be disappointed in the team not doing well if they're only minnows who drew the mighty Iceland.

Well apparently it does when tha is the EXACT point you are arguing in Next England Manager thread despite being told by others that it doesn't matter. Good grief.

Yep, you can look at his good performances, Russia for example but like his performances for United last season, it's a case of them being poor rather than good overall.

Hopefully with a few good signings the problem becomes one for Wayne rather than United.

Wait, are people suggesting that England were underdogs last night?

Wow.

This all feels weird. I don't like it.

England are out of a tournament and a United player isn't the scapegoat. Have we fallen that far?

Kane was truly dreadful. The biggest crime though was the manager continuing to play him regardless.

I'm not so sure.

Rooney seems to be taking an absolute kicking, in some quarters.

It makes a change from the media love in regarding his 'transformation' as a midfield player. They waxed lyrical about him playing there in the FA cup when he was mostly anonymous.
I have yet to be convinced about him being effective playing there but fall short of slagging anyone off in particular, in that farce of a performance against Iceland.

My only scapegoat is Hodgson for playing totally exhausted Spurs players, his former Liverpool favourites and for playing just about all of them in a wrong position

The positional/tactical argument is a valid one, and Hodgson can be rightly questioned for that.

However, I don't think that he can really be blamed for the personnel. Who else could he have realistically picked? Kane has been the outstanding English striker of the last 2 years, everyone and their dog was claiming that Sturridge HAD to play, he'd have been slaughtered for not picking Alli. I reckon that 90% of us fans would have picked pretty much the same 11, last night.

I'm not saying that it would have made a world of difference, but Welbeck was a huge miss.

Rooney as midfielder is a useless experiment that should be over by now, but don't think he's been scapegoated as much this time around.

Hodgson's infatuation with Sterling is amazing. Can't think of anything useful he did all tournament.

Looks as if Nani is going to Valencia, so that puts to bed that scary rumour he was heading back to OT lol

well he was terrible last night. hardly captains performance. chickened out of a 5050 early on.set the tone

although not his fault, roy shoehorned him into team as a midfielder. in russia he will be fullback because rooney is undroppable.

Yeh, this midfield experiment needs to stop.

He fights for his place along with everybody else upfront for both club and country.

Have I said otherwise?

I half imagine that was Rooneys last game for England.

Whilst he has no natural replacement, it is certainly a convenient time to move on.

Yep, I was thinking that too. Except in that second half England managed to outdo our snoreplay by topping it up with an extra dollop of crap. Only crumb of comfort I can think of is that if we had somehow managed to sneak a win, we would just have got a humiliating thrashing from France. Didn't think I'd see worse than how we performed in 2010 - and especially not with this team - but I should know by now never to doubt the depths England can sink to. And just like getting rid of LVG, the next manager has to be a proven winner regardless of how much little englander's like Ian Wright think it should go to another native.

As for what it means for United, I think Jose would have already have known that Rooney can't be relied on in the middle and is making plans accordingly. I actually wouldn't be too harsh on Rooney last night. He wasn't any worse than anyone else and gave it all he had - he just doesn't have that much left. As good as Italy were, Spain's main man Inestia still managed to go by the odd player. Every time Rooney tried a dribble he just lost the ball. But at least he did try and never hid from wanting the ball even when all he was doing was wasting it. I don't know WTF Harry Kane or Delli Ali did.

I just hope Jose keeps faith with Rashford because the lad deserves to be first choice next season. Course, he has to be rotated and will mostly feature from the bench I guess, but I can't think of a single game where he has let United or England down.

I definitely don't want to see Rooney and Zlatan as our front two

Rooney was poor no doubt about that, but he was no way near as poor as the three worst candidates for the title of worst English player, Hart, Sterling and Kane (Whilshire gets the most unfit award, shockingly Sturridge managed to stay reasonably for for the duration).

It is about wanting your team to win, so being favourites or not for the match is totally irrelevant, if your team gets beat, then it hurts and you do feel let down by them, surely that doesn't need explaining??!


Once again you are totally missing the point.