I WARNED ICE MAY FREEZE ROY

ENGLAND fans are not happy. Their high hopes going into Euro 2016 came to nothing. As I warned in these pages last week, England would not find Iceland easy to beat but it was still a big shock. Iceland are not a great team but they have been doing well for two years. They were in a qualifying group which included Holland, the Czech Republic and Turkey — and beat all of them at home. They are very good in the way they play. It is pragmatic rather than attractive but they get results. I wrote in my last column that England would either need something exceptional or a little bit of luck. That didn’t happen. It is not easy to break down Iceland. Take the full backs, Kyle Walker and Danny Rose. In the Premier League, when the game ebbs and flows, they go up and down, enjoying themselves and you can’t stop them. On Monday, against a team which was defending with so many numbers, they had the ball but didn’t know what to do with it because they are not used to playing this kind of game. Iceland play the same way when they go a goal down because they know they will get a throw-in or a corner at some stage, so they don’t need to put too many players in front of the ball to harm you. If, as England did, you get your noses in front, you have to try to keep the ball in their half. England had a lot of possession but they didn’t create many scoring chances. In contrast, Iceland looked dangerous on the counterattack, especially in the second half when England lost their shape. They totally deserved their win. Now Roy Hodgson has resigned. I always try to be sympathetic towards international managers because in the modern world, they are slaughtered when things go wrong. It is the same in Croatia. The fans are not happy either. Like England, they had high hopes and were left disappointed. Our national coach, Ante Cacic, has been heavily criticised following Croatia’s exit against Portugal. It was a shocking defeat for us and, as a coach, you know what to expect when that happens. The outcome is logical. With England, you would not have argued with the team Roy put out on Monday but they didn’t produce — they looked flat. They lacked some much-needed experience. Overall, Roy has fielded offensive teams in his time and he had a young squad as well. He deserves credit for that, but on Monday they were without someone who had that quality. Even Rooney was misplacing passes he would normally have made with his eyes closed.