As good a goalkeeper as Joe Hart is, I’ve always said that he’s not as good as a lot of people think he is.
He didn’t have a great season at Manchester City, he was obviously still going to start the tournament, and to be fair every keeper makes a mistake.
But to make two errors like that in a major tournament within three games – conceding Gareth Bale’s free-kick against Wales and Iceland’s winner – you’ve got to start asking questions as regards to his position, and the new manager has got to take a look at that.
The options are there to be seen in Fraser Forster and Jack Butland, when he’s fit. There’s not a magnificent load of options, but at the end of the day, Joe’s had his chance. It’s only natural that people start asking questions because the standard in major tournaments is so high and you’ve got to be right on your game.
There’s obviously other things at fault like the defence’s ability to cope with the pressure of a big occasion, and that got to us, we didn’t seem to be prepared for the pressure whereas Iceland seemed a lot more relaxed.
We conceded two bad goals and my fears for the defence coming into the tournament were realised. We hadn’t really been tested defensively in previous games and when the pressure was on us we conceded two soft goals through bad marking from a simple long throw for the first, and allowing space on the edge of the box for Hart’s second big mistake of the tournament for the second.
To lose goals at the wrong time always affects confidence and when you concede in a short space of time in the manner that we did – it really put us under the cosh. We didn’t seem to have any comeback, which was disappointing. There’s an old saying: ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’ but they just didn’t come. You can call that the ability to handle pressure or a lack of character.
Roy Hodgson did a good job up until the tournament but he just didn’t pass the test of getting the players in the right spirit for a major tournament. He also picked the wrong team for the first one and a half games and we just didn’t progress after that.
Some have said they don’t enjoy the pressure of playing for England, but you have to accept that as a top international playing for any country. It shouldn’t come into it as a professional player, you just have to go out and perform no matter what people are saying.
You know, when you win, people will praise you and, when you lose, you will get slaughtered. It happened to us in 1986 and 1990 but we just shrugged it off and got to the quarters and the semis.
This is probably up there with the biggest shock in the modern footballing era. For as long as I can remember, I can’t think of as big an upset at a major tournament as this. I thought, as long as we matched Iceland, our ability would be enough.
Where do we go now? Well it’s the same old question, isn’t it? If you look around, there’s not exactly an abundance of interesting managers, it’s a dilemma. You’ve got to get a manager who has experience of winning, who has had a decent club managerial career and who would relish the opportunity of international football.
I said before Hodgson’s appointment, a good option would be – OK he’s not English, but he’s as close to being English as you can get – Martin O’Neill. Because I know his man-management skills and he’s now showed it in a major tournament.
When I look at Ireland, the way they played and improved all the time, and their fighting spirit and attitude under Martin, we just didn’t see that with England and for me that’s what Hodgson lacked. Someone along the lines of O’Neill would be good but there’s not many of those coaches around.
— Peter Shilton OBE is the global ambassador for Seattle Sport Sciences, Inc. and brand ISOTechne. For more information, visit www.isotechne.com
