Numb

We're probably used to it by now, turn up expecting to win the tournament, qualify out of the group without setting the world alight and then get beat on penalties by the first decent team to stand in our way. Certainly the mood in Nottingham on Saturday night was one of depressed acceptance rather than the anger that spilled out after the Germany games in 90 or 96.

Of course everyone now needs someone to blame, McGaribaldi sums it quite nicely, the three main suspects being Rooney, Ronaldo & Eriksson.

While Rooney suffered at the hands of the Portuguese all afternoon, surely it's something he should be used to by now. If not, he's got a few difficult months ahead of him as copycats all over Europe attempt to minimise his impact.

Ronaldo of course, is a greasy haired cheat, but that's because he's Johnny Foreigner and doesn't play the way we do in Blighty. This, of course, is b******s. He took the proverbial out of Gary Neville all day and quite rightly got upset when one of his players was stamped on, although clearly not as violently as first thought. While the FA are still not issuing the England team with those invisible yellow cards that everyone seems to carry round with them, we still know how best to use gravity to our advantage (Owen in 98, Owen again 02, Gerrard earlier this year).

Eriksson on the other hand has to take a large chunk of the blame. Playing Rooney up front on his own is a waste of talent. He doesn't play well without support and gets wound up having to beat three men on his own, we all would. Joe Cole is quite easily the most creative player in the starting 11 and his departure left a huge gap on the left hand side making the task for the 10 against 11 even harder when a quarter of the pitch was effectively off limits. Taking 4 centre-forwards was seen as a gamble at the start of the tournament, but will be judged as folly when you realise that actually, we only took 3. 2 were injured and the other was Peter Crouch. If your not going to play Theo Walcott, why bother taking him ? Eriksson's record in competitive games stands up well in comparison to his predecessors, he only lost 1 qualifying game in five years and that was a '1 in a 100' fluke, the only finals game lost in 90 minutes was against the all conquering Brazilians.

So why is everyone so negative towards him ?

In my humble opinion, what makes a great manager / coach is the ability to take a group of 11 players and mould them in to a unit greater than the sum of their parts. Shankley, Fergusson, Clough all had this talent. When you start with possibly the best set of players England has had at a major tournament, to make them better would have rendered the tournament unnecessary. There's not a team left in the semi-finals that I know we couldn't beat player for player.

Everyone knows that we could play better, but we never did, and it's that that is going to be Eriksson's legacy.

I have a fourth suspect, the British media. They do not have the best interest of the England team at heart, lie to manufacture gossip and create so much pressure on the team that not beating every team by 5 or 6 is seen as unacceptable. No wonder England teams are sent out so as not to lose, rather than win matches. If you believe the red tops, foreign sides all cheat and are all rubbish, even the ones above us in the FIFA rankings, which are then ridiculed when it suits. Mexico, apparently, are only so high because they only play easy games, while we have to struggle against world giants such as Macedonia, Albania & Lithuania. Every trip to Germany is reported in a similar manner to the d-day landings, every defensive display described using the words "Dunkirk" & "spirit", although quite what the Johnson Arms has got to do with it is beyond me.

I'm not a huge fan of Steve McLaren, I like passing football, he doesn't, I like successful football, he's won the League Cup, I like Joe Cole, he's related to Stuart Downing. But the press will crucify him as soon as Greece aren't put to the sword.

From an England point of view it's going to be difficult couple of years, so thank god that Forest are back in action a week on Friday. Ilkeston away, it's just like watching Brazil .......