Twitter has been full of praise for this Rob Bagchi article, for The Telegraph, assessing what went wrong for England in Brazil. Bagchi lays the blame with Hodgson, although his primary argument seems to be that, for his (admittedly too-large) salary, he should have done better. This argument provides no solution, deftly sidestepping the obvious question: if not Hodgson then who? Bagchi doesn’t provide an answer.

His real criticism though is of the players, and here at least it is fair to apportion the fault - or at least a large slice of it - with Hodgson for picking those underperformers. I do at least agree with Bagchi on particular were the culpable players:

“Yet anyone who had studied Steven Gerrard’s performance for Liverpool against Chelsea after his slip helped Demba Ba score, and saw him resort to positional indiscipline and playing the Hail Mary passes he has hit throughout his career when rattled, was troubled by his deployment in a central two.”

“Frank McLintock tells the story of how when he started playing at centre-half for Arsenal in 1969 after 11 years as a wing-half, the left-back, Bob McNab, used to scream at him, badgering him to stay in position in the most impertinent and profane terms even though McLintock was one of the most inspirational captains in the history of English club football. When Wayne Rooney was consigned to the left-flank and Italy flooded behind him and overloaded Leighton Baines, the left-back did not harangue or even plead with his team-mate to help him out. Gerrard, in temperament a leader by example we are repeatedly told, did not lay down the law either.”

Bagchi’s article highlights the difficulty of finding any concrete problem with the England team. There is no doubt that there is talent there, with many of the squad playing pivotal roles for successful, top-level teams. Whilst Hodgson may have felt incapable of leaving out big-names such as Gerrard and Rooney (and I think there can be little debate that England would, at least, have been no worse off had those two not featured in Brazil), he has shown himself to value reputation far less than many of his predecessors. As for Bagchi’s criticism of the FA, he limits himself only to an attack on their overspending, which can bear no logical link on the team’s poor performance.

So what was and is the problem with England?

I don’t know either.