RIO FERDINAND BELIEVES “naive” England can have no complaints about their embarrassing early exit from the World Cup.
After slumping to 2-1 defeats in their first two matches in Brazil against Italy and Uruguay, Roy Hodgson’s team were officially eliminated on Friday when Costa Rica beat the Italians 1-0.
That surprise result left England bottom of Group D and out of the tournament with a match still to play.
It is the first time in 56 years England have failed to make it out of the World Cup group stage and Ferdinand, a former England captain, is adamant Hodgson’s squad have only themselves to blame for failing to adopt a more ruthless attitude when the momentum was with them.
“You have to earn the right to stay in a tournament. Unfortunately for us, we have not done that,” Ferdinand told the BBC.
“Maybe we were a bit naive in situations, in the Uruguay game when we got back into it at 1-1.
“We had a chance to get a point and dust ourselves down, to say ‘right, we are ready for the last game when everything is going to be on it,’ but we did not give ourselves the opportunity.
“It was there for us and we just could not see it through.”
Former England winger Chris Waddle, who featured in the 1986 and 1990 World Cup squads, admitted he was stunned the national team were already out of the tournament before some teams had even played their second group matches.
“They said there would be three teams fighting to get out of the group but we didn’t think England would be bottom,” he told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“England are sitting in their hotel absolutely devastated but they have had two chances to get points on the board and they haven’t taken them.
“If you have the best players in the world you can play any system you want but we haven’t got that so we have to be hard to beat.”
Former England striker Stan Collymore pointed the finger of blame at captain Steven Gerrard, who has produced two lacklustre performances in Brazil.
Liverpool midfielder Gerrard made errors in the build-up to the two Luis Suarez goals for Uruguay and Collymore said on talkSPORT: “Steven Gerrard has been a wonderful servant to Liverpool football club and for England.
“But, for me now, I think he needs to look at himself and say perhaps he wants to extend his club career and retire from the England national scene.”
Nottingham Forest boss Stuart Pearce, a former England player and Under-21 national team coach, believes more care and attention needs to be shown to the under-age sides if the national team are to flourish at major tournaments.
“What tends to happen every two years is we get emotionally very highly charged when we go out of a competition like today,” he told talkSPORT.
“But the clues are in the two years in between. At all the youth levels we fail to send our best players to tournaments and we fail to give them experience at tournament football and we hope it will all come right on the big stage every two years.”
While England’s exit has provoked a predictable cry for changes, FA chairman Greg Dyke on Friday confirmed Hodgson will remain as manager and former England striker Alan Shearer is convinced that is the right decision.
“I think he should be given the opportunity to take England to the Euros in two years. We have to see the likes of (Luke) Shaw, (Raheem) Sterling, Ross (Barkley), these guys,” Shearer told the BBC.
“Everyone wanted to see the kids given a chance and he went and tried to win the game against Italy. He should be given the chance to finish what he started.”
It balanced itself out in the end, Thomas’s should never have got a red card, Gaels can have no complaints when they didn’t take advantage of that terrible decision.
@anthony davoren: Thomas red was deserved but OL should of had 2 reds also
@anthony davoren: totally agree, surprised with Richie Power, they were beaten by 14 men!!!
It did not loose them the game
OLGs didnt have the forwards to win it, sour grapes, they should suck it up, move on, accept the better team won it
how about not putting joe soap/refs pal as umpires…2 lads about 5 ft away
…..should be refs doing that in big games
Umpires should have captured
Oloughlin Gaels scored more than the opposition and yet lost.
Fair play?
@Michael Lyng: . Two of their players were lucky to stay on the field. Fair play?
@Michael Lyng: Except that they didn’t score more than the opposition
If they couldn’t be sure it was over the line they couldn’t give it. Simple as that. It looked over to me at first but we all needed slo-mo replays to be sure. The umpires were right in this instance, but it only serves to underline the case for goal line technology. These new smart sliothars will hopefully address the problem
A Kilkenny man saying a couple of O Loughlins could have got red really means they definitely should have and saying the Thomas’s player was unfortunate actually means he shouldn’t have seen red, not able to use an extra man for a huge percentage of the match is probably a more viable angle to review