While the blame for losing to Iceland should fall on Hodgson and his players for their abject performance, England's failures go way beyond the current squad, who are the best of an average lot. The problem is we simply do not create enough talented footballers.
If you go to Spain and escape the typical tourist traps, you'll find narrow streets full of kids with the physiques of whippets playing one touch football with anything they can kick. So it's no surprise Spain has generated so many technically gifted footballers.
Yet things are very different in the UK. A lot of children are dumped in front of a playstation and fed a diet of crap food. The little hippos are more likely to develop diabetes than play Sunday league football. Those that are left are taught badly. In the words of Chris Waddle "we coach creativity out of our kids". We are taught to stand like statues, trap the ball, then pass, then run to a different position. It works in the championship downwards, but simply does not cut it in the Premier League. The few English players who make it to that level of out number by foreign imports, particularly in the better teams. This leaves the England manager with a very small pool of viable players to pick from, which is a sharp contrast with the better European teams where competition for places is much higher.
Man City have ploughed a lot of money into developing their youth training since their Arab take over. Despite have a populous catchment area that has proved a fertile breeding ground for footballers over the years, only 11 of the club's 33 strong development squad are English. It is quite telling.
So until we do something about our lazy fat kids and improve how we coach them, we won't see any change to England's footballing performance.