Pundits and fans slam 'rubbish' England after Iceland defeat

Iceland beat England 2-1 last night, ending Roy Hodgson's career as manager and seeing the team crash out of Euro 2016.

Ian Wright led the recriminations in the TV studio straight after the match, saying he thought England had been "rubbish", says the Daily Mail.

"They did not perform today. They were rubbish in this game. Rubbish. Someone was waiting for someone else to do something. They were petrified," said the pundit.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Such was his despair that at one point, the former player even likened events to the 1996 film Space Jam, where basketball players have their talents taken by aliens.

"I just can't stop thinking about the film Space Jam," he said. "It's like the Monstars nicked their talent or something."

Alongside him, Peter Crouch said: "Iceland looked more organised than us. It's embarrassing, there's no dressing it up."

On the BBC, a visibly angry Alan Shearer described his national team as "pathetic, shocking, inept".

Overcoming his natural reticence, Joey Barton put the blame on a "culture of entitlement" within the England set-up and laid into coach Gary Neville, saying: "The Neville myth has [been] exploded."

He urged England to "stop giving jobs to ex-top players", says the Daily Mirror. "Coaching is a totally different skill set, it requires expertise... that has to been learned by doing the time and apprenticeships away from the pressure and spotlight of big jobs," he said.

The Sun went for the obvious frozen food-based pun, with the front-page headline: "Dumbs gone to Iceland" and a picture of Wayne Rooney's sonm Kaim in despair with the words: "Oh Dad! What have Roo done?"

Over at the Daily Mirror, which said England had been "humiliated by Iceland minnows", they went for the headline: "Brrrexit Hodgson."

The #ENGICE hashtag trended on Twitter as frustrated fans looked to share their misery with jokes. The most popular gag also referenced the EU referendum, with fans remarking that only England could crash out of Europe twice in one week.

Gary Lineker began his comments early, tweeting that Iceland's equaliser had come so quickly he hadn't even had time to post about England's only goal.

Like many fans, Lineker was frustrated by Jamie Vardy's late appearance - "about bloody time", he wrote, when the Leicester City striker did come on – and he ended the game by saying the squad had been beaten by "a country with more volcanoes than professional footballers".

Daniel Taylor of The Guardian, meanwhile, also commented on Iceland's position in the footballing world.

And fellow sports journalist Barry O'Mahony made an unfavourable comparison between the two teams' respective managers:

But it wasn't all criticism: Iceland's David-and-Goliath victory brought them praise from England's generously-minded fans, with Matt Hughes at The Times calling them "outstanding":