Cheated out of the tournament or not, England were not good enough... A one-man inquest into England's World Cup Disaster...

As the England players begin their journey home from South Africa today, they will have time to reflect on where the tournament went so badly wrong for them, and where they can go from here. Here's one fan's thoughts as to the failings of his national side...

However anyone chooses to look back at this World Cup, one thing you can say for absolutely certain is that England have again let themselves down and failed to perform when the heat was really on.


What reasons are there for this though?

Perhaps one could be Fabio Capello, a man seen as the saviour of English football before the World Cup, but now widely vilified given England's early exit.
Though Capello is still undoubtedly an excellent manager, and should be gven the chance to continue on as England boss, he has made some unquestionably strange decisions recently, both in the build up to and during the tournament.

Firstly, one that sticks in the forefront of my mind was his decision to bring Jamie Carragher into the squad.

Carragher, having already retired from international football in 2007, rejoined the squad at the wish of Capello and his assistant Franco Baldini.

A few years ago, the decision to have Jamie Carragher in the squad would have seemed justified.

Now though, it seemed an odd choice, with whatever injury problems England had, as Carragher's massive lack of pace seemed to be a worrying feature of his game, and was coming off the back of probably his poorest season ever for Liverpool.

Another problem many England fans have had with Capello in this tournament is his choice of tactics and personnel, including his substitutions.
With 20 minutes left to play in England's catastrophic second round defeat to Germany, his side were in desperate need of a goal. Capello brought of Jermaine Defoe, probably the man most likely to score for England with Wayne Rooney so out of sorts, and instead introduced Emile Heskey.

One cannot argue with the fact that Emile Heskey has performed a solid job for England on a number of occasions, but he is certainly not the man to bag you a goal or two and turn a match around.

Though much of the blame will be laid at Fabio Capello's door, it is without doubt also the fault of the players too.

Players like

Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, John Terry and Wayne Rooney perform consistently well for their clubs, and yet as soon as they are on international duty, they seem to be overawed with the situation and scared to try anything at all, in case of making a mistake.

And as far as Wayne Rooney is concerned, one can only imagine why his performances and attitude throughout the tournament has looked so abject. Many reports have claimed he was not fully fit, but this is not what we were told by the England management team.

Do these players have the desire to really step up and make a difference at international level?

You would hope so but on the performances in this tournament you wouldn't be too sure.

As with any tournament, all of the successful teams also need a huge amount of luck, something in which England were also lacking.

They will feel incredibly hard done by, and quite rightly, for Frank Lampard's "goal that never was" against Germany, but it should not mask the fact that we were out-thought, out-manouvered, and out-played.

The Germans completely destroyed the hesitant and frightened looking England back line, playing on the counter attack and making England pay for commiting too many men forward. To that end, there really can be little arguments.

What is becoming more and more frustrating as an England fan though is the fact that it is more than likely that nothing will be done about it.

Also worrying is the fact that the FA still seem to be doing very little is nuturing young talent, and in fact seem to be coaching talent out of players like Rooney or Gerrard, and then wonder why they can't perform.

England seem to be set in their ways and things will have to change for the country to move on to better days.

Only time will tell where England will move onto from here.

With Capello, or without, big changes will certainly need to be made.