If I had control of the Science & Technology budget I’d spend it all on cloning a young Barry Davies, locking him in a room and making him commentate on all football, for ever.

If you think it’s down to poxy spirit-of-the-law disrupting LBW referrals, stop-the-game-for-5-minutes run out calls or witless powerplays, then it is you who resides on planet loon-ville.

BTW – where’s Italy in that list? Or maybe they should be on the winner’s list, ’cause they brought so much joy to Germany with their performance…

Not sure why Spain are getting so much grief here Anton, but the England problem is not ability its a combination of the factors Spain have now managed.

England forgot how to keep the ball.
Spain kept the ball, even if not always going forward that, surely, is the greatest lesson we can learn? Teach our players, from a young age, to keep the ball?

England were tired, physically and mentally.
Spain play a similar number of games in La Liga, but have developed a strength of character and winning habit. They also play as a team. Big names are dropped, and the system overrides anything – hence Fabregas, Silva and Torress can find themselves on the bench even though they all play in this wonderful league of ours.

England were tactically naive.
The players wanted to ignore the manager, and then just forgot altogether versus Germany. Gung-ho attacking football (so popular under the Keegan days), a style that served us and Argentina so well against the Germans, is a thing of the past; or at least if current trends continue. Attacking with pace like Arsenal and Real Madrid is wonderful to watch but so difficult to execute and easy (ask Lyon and Man United) to pick off the space. Spain keep the ball, don’t up the tempo unless they see an opportunity or necessity and control the game.

It was a shame Holland decided to ‘park the bus and start a fight club’ because they have the players to take Spain on, and the winning habit; but they obviously saw the footballing lesson Germany were given and focused on stopping Spain controlling possession. Massive shame.

I watched some of the Corden Show, and the show with Andy Murray rapping was funny. So were Arshavin and Davids on Sat night (both had clearly been on the smoke) but out of, say, two hours total watching, I laughed maybe 5 times so not the worst comedy ratio but it was utterly painful at times (especially when the token wag spoke or Corden danced with JLS and is less painful than reading the Mail comments board or HYS;which I’m pretty sure is the only other leisure activity available to me).

Anyway, the Enemies of Reason World Cup Coverage excelled, and with only another million hours till the next one, in fucking Brazil – surely the tactics will have changed by then, with Gary Neville and Jamie Carra as pundits and the world will be a better place; oh, and Wilshire will be too tired and Gary Cahill will have been shagging Adam Johnson’s Mum or something…