[Devongone]

Whilst I can understand calls for an Eddie Jones figure in the England set-up it isn't easy to compare England's rugby World Cup failure with last night's debacle. At rugby we conjured defeat from victory against a decent but depleted Welsh team and then lost to Australia who were the second best team in the world. At football we were inept against Slovakia, moderate against Russia, slightly better against Wales and then beaten easily by Iceland, who were relying on a centre back who wasn't a success at Plymouth or Rotherham. Eddie Jones has done a great job, but he wasn't taking over of players persistently failing as soon as they hit even a moderately-sized stage, despite on paper looking like one of the strongest squads in poor tournaments. Individually we'd imagine ourselves the equal or even superior to Italy. As a team they wiped the floor with Spain, we couldn't do that with a bucket and mop.

Is there a reverse to blood-doping? Blood-draining? If so then it has happened to Harry Kane, lifeless, uncreative, his free-kicks and corners were embarrassing, his control was poor, he looked slow and weak - there are some crap centre forwards in this tournament and he fitted the mould. Raheem Stirling, can you remember when he was a tough, quick bouncy little player who ran at people? Now he goes down under any challenge, rarely beats a man, loses control, passes wildly and seems to have no appreciation of the players around him. Sturridge, I've rarely seen a player with so little control and so few ideas on positions to occupy. Rooney is usually a lovely passer of a ball, did he think we were playing in blue? Joe Hart is/was a goood keeper. I'm reading a biography of Robert Enke at the moment; I hope Joe stays away from trains (though he'd probably go down late for it!) He went down like a bag of sugar with a hole in it for Bale's modest free-kick, kept goal like a kitten on an aga against Slovakia and last night's second goal, I can only hope all recordings have been wiped of him groping slowly at trickling fresh air like a man with an infarction ........ Wilshere came on as our saviour in place of the only man who has scored a good goal for us in the competition, Vardy came on to get behind a team so deep you couldn't have got a row of lettuce behind them and Rashford, for his 8 minutes looked as though he'd have run at them and destroyed them if he hadn't spent the game in the stand. Our centre backs were uninspiring, we moved Dier forward to to destroy them of the assurance he'd earlier provided ........... What was wrong, only everything. Roy made mistakes, but managers do that all the time, players can change games with or without them. Ours did. They made themselves into losers and instead of trying something different simply repeated errors ad infinitum. It wasn't even a difficult game for Iceland.

So we think big slow-footed Frazer Foster is a better keeper than Hart? He's okay, good enough for Southampton, got a few trophies at Celtic, but English Division 2 keepers go up to Scotland and become first choices in a Premier League. Whenever Frazer has been given the England jersey he's looked overwhelmed. There are very few British goalkeepers capable of holding down a place in the English Premier League. If Joe Hart loses himself or can't get into the Manchester City team we may end up playing rush goalies in the World Cup qualifiers.

We have a lot of talented players at the moment, but they seem to have forgotten that the aim of sport is to win against an opponent. This often requires you to get down and dirty. It requires you to surrender your ego to a team. And if your opponent is giving everything, not doing that yourself is pretty fatal. Mr Hodgson is from a generation to which all those things were self-evident truths. They remain truths in Iceland. Our rugby players I think knew they were truths and that is why Eddie Jones has succeeded - rugby is a game in which it is bloody obvious you can't both pose and win. Now football I'm not so sure. The culture is slight knock, go down and writhe. Look pretty, brand your boots, get your priorities right, dandruff is a bigger worry than that toe-poke you can't quite reach.

We had a decent, good man as manager who was massively let down by players who have never learned a whole raft of lessons that were once taught and learnt in kickabouts on any green space across the country or even in the streets. We've lost a winning and competitive edge in the same way that Scotland lost those tanner ball players it once produced. Scotland now hasn't a decent player in terms of skills and the only English players capable of generating a will to win came from unusual backgrounds - Dier brought up in Portugal, Alli fought his way to Milton Keynes before being recognised, Vardy in his tag at the steel mill and maybe Rooney.

Iceland played in the simplest way possible. We didn't need tactical genius or management to beat them - only a will to win. This is a very poor tournament. Every single side looks eminently beatable.