England vs Iceland: Six things we learnt - Do we want Gary Neville as manager and Roy Hodgson failed to see warning signs

Nation guilty of underestimating Iceland, England aren't as talented as people think, defeat must go down as the worst in history and players aren't performing for clubs, let alone country

England suffered the worst defeat in their history in the 2-1 loss to Iceland (Getty)

Do we really want Gary Neville as England manager?

No one will question the passion of Gary Neville, but his coaching techniques must surely be in question after the past 12 months. An ill-fated stint with Valencia meant that the former Manchester United defender’s first venture into management proved an unsuccessful one, with Neville being sacked after just four months in Spain.

Now a young, talented manager should not be completely written off after one poor choice, but we’re talking about the England manager’s job, a role that is meant to be the pinnacle for any football coach born in this country. The sight of Ragnar Sigurdsson bundling home Iceland’s equaliser, which came from the feared long-throw tactic that is a trademark of the Icelandic game, must raise serious questions of Neville’s role in the previous coaching set-up.

Neville will have been responsible for the defence and he would have focused on defending against the long-throw all week, only to then concede from that very set-play. Surely the next England manager cannot be a man who was sacked after four months and is partially at fault for England’s worst defeat in their history.

England, fans and media guilty of underestimating Iceland

Every man and his dog on these shores expected England to beat Iceland at Euro 2016, so much so that the possibility of a premature exit hadn’t crossed anyone’s minds until Kolbeinn Sigthorsson put Iceland ahead. Suddenly, as Joe Hart looked back at the ball trickling over his own line, it dawned on everyone that England had a job on their hands – a job they were incapable of doing.

The fallout from the match has been focused around England’s abject performance, but why not look at Iceland and commend them for their brilliant execution of a well-structured plan. They knew that if they could defend well enough o keep England at bay, they would be able to work themselves one or two chances. That plan was in danger of unravelling as soon as goalkeeper Hannes Halldorsson felled Raheem Sterling, but credit to Iceland, they launched an immediate response to score an equaliser inside two minutes.

Joint coaches Lars Lagerbäck and Heimir Hallgrímsson read England perfectly and had a plan to deal with them.

The team is not as talented as people may think

There is a familiar feeling in England on the eve of every tournament that this might just be the one to end all those years of hurt, despite spending the past two years since the dismal 2014 World Cup showing writing off any chance of winning Euro 2016. Expectations rise – based on a run of 10 straight victories in qualifying for the tournament – while a victory over world champions Germany didn’t help matters.

However, there is nothing to suggest that this crop of players are anything close to European champions, let alone world beaters. Their recent record at major tournaments has been nothing short of terrible, and there is not one player in the squad that has appeared on the shortlist for the Ballon d’Or award in the last three years. It’s about time people accepted that at the moment, England just aren’t that good.

The warning signs were there, but Hodgson didn’t see them

Hodgson spoke of the problem England were having with breaking teams down that were setting up in a defensive formation and looking to break on the counter attack. England faced this problem throughout the group stage as Russia, Wales and Slovakia refused to attack them until an opportunity presented itself. As Danny Higginbotham stated in his exclusive column for The Independent, England needed to attack out wide where they could stretch Iceland’s defence in order to create space to attack centrally.

So what did England do? They tried to go through Iceland and when they met a brick wall, they resorted to long-range shots. For a squad that was supposed to be deploying attacking tactics with five recognised strikers among their squad, the prospect of going 86 minutes without scoring a goal against Iceland should have been inconceivable.


 Roy Hodgson failed to see the warning signs before the Iceland defeat 
 (Getty)

Defeat must go down as worst in England’s history

There aren’t too many high points in English football history, but boy are there plenty of low points. Yet the loss to Iceland felt like the worst of them all, and all that most fans could do was laugh. We laughed when the equaliser went in less than two minutes after England’s opener, we laughed when Iceland took the lead and we were almost in tears of laughter when the full-time whistle went. It was typically English.

The loss to the United States at the 1950 World Cup was widely regarded as England’s worst defeat to date, but going out of the European Championship to Iceland trumps that 1-0 loss in Belo Horizonte. That’s a burden that these players – and in particular Hodgson – will have to live with for some time.

Players aren’t performing for club or country

How many of the starting XI on Monday night came of the back of a strong season? Harry Kane certainly flourished for Tottenham in 2015/16, but he appeared a shadow of his normal self in France and perhaps cracked under the expectation of playing at a major championship. That could be said for the rest of his Spurs teammates, with Kyle Walker, Danny Rose, Eric Dier and Dele Alli all struggling against Iceland – which came just weeks after their late season collapse cost them a chance at the title and also saw rivals Arsenal finish above them.


 Players can't be expected to perform for England if they aren't for their club 
 (AFP/Getty)

But what about Raheem Sterling? Or Wayne Rooney? Or Gary Cahill? Sterling suffered an alarming dip in form with Manchester City after initially making a strong start to life at the Etihad. By the end of the campaign, Sterling couldn’t even get in Manuel Pellegrini’s starting line-up, while Gary Cahill was part of a Chelsea defence that completed the worst ever Premier League title defence. As for Rooney, he rotated between striker, No 10 and central midfielder, and it can hardly go down as the England captain’s best season. If these players aren’t performing, what chance to England have of European success. None, as it turns out.