Carry on, FA tells England Cup manager

ROY HODGSON retains the support of England’s players despite presiding over their embarrassingly early World Cup exit.

Joe Hart claimed to speak for the entire dressing room yesterday when he echoed the sentiments of Greg Dyke, the FA chairman, who earlier in the day had insisted Hodgson remains the man to take England forward.

Costa Rica’s surprise victory over Italy yesterday condemned England to being knocked out at the group stage for the first time since 1958, but such humiliation has not diminished Hodgson’s standing among the players, according to Hart.

The 66-year-old has two years left on his contract, which the FA is adamant he will be permitted to see out.

‘‘Me personally – and I think I speak for all the players – I am proud to play for Roy Hodgson,’’ Hart said.

‘‘He’s a great manager, he’s a very passionate man and someone that I have got an awful lot of respect for and I hope to continue playing for.

‘‘I understand people saying we’re not good enough, but we don’t feel that inside the camp. We’ve got bags of quality, bags of people coming through, great leaders, great experienced players in that dressing room and have just come up short in two games. But you can’t come up short in two games in the World Cup.’’

Leighton Baines insisted that Hodgson was making progress with England despite the defeats by Italy and Uruguay, pointing to his willingness to blood young players such as Ross Barkley, his Everton teammate.

‘‘We are going in the right direction,’’ Baines said. ‘‘There are some improvements to be made, but I think we have made some positive strides and if we can continue down that path we are going in the right direction.

‘‘He has given everyone a go and you would imagine some of the young lads are going to be around for many, many years. Ross had some magic moments and he’s going to be one of those who is going to be around for many, many more years.’’

However, the English media haven’t been so forgiving over England’s dreadful campaign.

Newspapers vented anger at the FA for giving Hodgson the green light to carry on in charge, 35 minutes before England went crashing out.

The Daily Mail said it was ‘‘bloody insulting’’ for the FA to declare Hodgson safe in his job so quickly.

‘‘Greg Dyke, the erratic FA chairman, decided it should be the very day for him to declare his public support for his manager in what looks like a Sepp Blatter-esque display of disengaged buffoonery.

‘‘He might as well have said: ’Who cares about the fans anyway, I’ll just do what I want and sod the lot of you’.

The paper added: ‘‘This is as good as it gets. This is what we must expect. This is who we are now. The smiling idiots just happy to be at the party.

‘‘Dyke talks blithely of winning a World Cup in 2022 but his is an organisation devoid of ambition.’’

The Daily Telegraph said the FA should apologise to England’s fans.

‘‘They think it’s all over. It is now. How those words haunt England,’’ the broadsheet said.

‘‘The national team’s latest failure . . . demands an apology from the FA, Roy Hodgson and the players.

‘‘The fans did not expect much, but they expected more than this; at least give them the inevitable pain of penalties. But this was humiliating, being turfed out of this wonderful party before they had hardly tasted their first caipirinha.’’

The Guardian said the ‘‘familiar search for scapegoats and answers’’ was under way as it tried to work out how to apportion blame.

‘‘England’s biggest names failed to ignite,’’ it said.

The Sun said it was not the end of the world, urging readers to sing Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.