39 years of experience

pasty said:

Disagree with that completely. Yeah, okay so we got through to the last 16 in 2010 but....

England 1-1 USA
England 0-0 Algeria
England 1-0 Slovenia

We then got completely and utterly DESTROYED by Germany. The end results this year were not as good I grant you, but the standard of the opposition was far greater than it was in 2010.

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This. The future feels a lot brighter than it did following 2010.

I get the optimism.
I get the fact we have improved since 2010.
I agree youth needs to be brought through.
The problem is Roy Hodgeson is 66 years old. People on here comparing us to Germany of 2002-4 need to realise that it was Klinssman and Low who started that journey, both men in their 40s then. Low is still Germany head coach after 6 years. I agree England need to build around youth as Germany did back then. The obvious problem is that we aren't going to go on that journey with a 66 year old manager. If England are serious about this then the man in charge needs to be 50 tops.

Milano said:

I get the optimism.
I get the fact we have improved since 2010.
I agree youth needs to be brought through.
The problem is Roy Hodgeson is 66 years old. People on here comparing us to Germany of 2002-4 need to realise that it was Klinssman and Low who started that journey, both men in their 40s then. Low is still Germany head coach after 6 years. I agree England need to build around youth as Germany did back then. The obvious problem is that we aren't going to go on that journey with a 66 year old manager. If England are serious about this then the man in charge needs to be 50 tops.

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What a load of absolute shi*. You are blaming our exit on RH age? Absolute drivel

Mo Gosfield said:

blah, blah, blah...

To put it bluntly, these promising youngsters in the England squad need shaking up. They need to understand that at that level it is unacceptable to be miscontrolling and giving the ball away regularly. They need to become sharper and come out from under the apron strings of all their foreign colleagues in the PL, who can cover up for their mistakes.

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England had a better pass completion rate than 11 of the teams(including Brazil, Holland and Colombia) who made it through to the second round. They had a better overall pass completion rate than both Uruguay and Costa Rica(but not Italy...). They had a better head to head pass completion rate than both Costa Rica(73%-71%) and Uruguay(76%-58%).

If you must criticise Hodgson and his team I'd suggest 'giving the ball away regularly' is the wrong stick to beat them with. Bearing in mind that our most successful passing combination in the 2012 quarter final against Italy was the Joe Hart to Andy Carroll hump down the pitch I'd say that significant progress has been made in terms of passing and ball retention in the two years of Hodgson's reign.