No surprise at England's failure

The only thing I'm surprised about is that there is any surprise.

Surely we had all lowered our expectations about England in this World Cup?

I thought we had, but then in the week leading up the finals (after our dismal 0-0 draw with Honduras) I noticed people saying things like "quarter-finals at least", and "we'll get through the group and see what happens", and "we'll beat Italy 3-1..."

Surely we've seen this demise coming?

But then, after the thrashing by Germany in the last World Cup (1-4 in the first knock-out round), there were sage noddings of heads to suggest that "it would all change now".

We're blind to our failures, and just because we're England we think we have some sort of right to be good. We don't and we're not.

FA Chairman Greg Dyke has come up with some sort of blueprint for England's future, but the nub of it is to give Premier League Clubs more presence in the Football League ('B' teams). It is doomed to failure.

The ONLY solution is to reduce the number of foreign players in the Premier League. Poor Roy Hodgson has about 60 English players in the Premier League to pick from. It's not enough.

But this solution will never happen because, as I've said before, the Premier League has foreign players, foreign managers, foreign coaches and foreign owners.

Iet used to England failure. It's here to stay.