HEY, heard the news? We were knocked out of the World Cup. Sounds familiar? Well of course it has been happening at regular intervals since we entered the competition in 1950.

Oh yes, there was 1966, when we won the trophy with the little help in the form of the referee sending off the Argentine skipper for dissent, enabling England to enjoy numerical advantage and so they won. They also won the final; courtesy of a goal that has since been proved was not the case. And we had home advantage and a following wind.

We also had something else. In the team were three players who, if the Martians had come down and challenged the globe to a game, would have been shoe-ins for the world squad. How many of the current players would make even the World IVth eleven.

Apart from 1966, every other time we have failed and there is something familiar about each failure: the Press has called for the manager’s head. They have done so this time round with the Daily Mail leading the stupid and predictable campaign which you could see was in the torpedo tubes some weeks back. The advantage is that everyone knows they are going to fail so the national press can gear up ready for it. The only doubt is when, not if.

You could see it: unadventurous Roy stuck with the tired and trusted and failed, or Roy gambled with the kids and lost. "You never win with kids," bleated Jeff Bowell in the Daily Knee Jerk. They said that to Sir Alex once and he proved that a fallacy..

The FA should have chosen Harry Redknapp, moan some pressmen who were so sure he was going to get the post, they fell asleep on their job and did not research the reality which was circulating round Fulham and WBA, that Hodgson had been earmarked a year earlier. There are sections of the Press who have never forgiven the FA for making them look such mugs when in fact they accomplished that all on their own.

So the knives will be out because it is simple and populist to blame Graham Taylor, Terry Venables, Hoddle, Sven, Keegan, the be-suited Italian and all the other people who have had excellent credentials for managing successful sides but somehow become labelled as incompetents as soon as they take on England. There is this inane belief in Fleet Street that all we have lacked in the last 50 years has been the right manager.

The manager has to go according to the Daily Knee-jerk - in this case the Mail. Soon Roy will be labelled with something stupid such as Roy Bodgeson. We had the Turnip and the Wally with the Brolly so watch that space.

I am glad Greg Dyke has said Roy will stay until 2016 (the Mail called it buffoonery and an insult to fans in a transparent attempt to appear to be at the head of a revolution).

Of course there will be those who will conduct a witch-hunt, re-examine the manager’s pedigree etc. They do it every four yars but it is about time they woke up and faced reality.

It was painted in large capitals on the pitch. We are simply not good enough.

Roy did not send in three supposed shots that would have qualified for firm back-passes, and neither did he, from good wide positions, play gentle lobs to the keeper. Roy did not let Suarez have a free header and then a free shot.

He tried to support Wayne Rooney, which may have been his main mistake, in that the striker is perhaps the most over-rated British footballer of modern times. Is too much expected of Rooney, the interviewer asks? Yes, because he is not that good and he proves it every World Cup and repeatedly in the Premier Division. But the national Press hype him up. Once they have made him big enough they will burst the balloon they created and damn him.

English football is run by the Premier League and greed and, as it is a circulation booster, the Press has a vested interest. Football fans are the same the world over. You can look on the Watford Mailing List, and note fans say how they do not care for England, probably because there is no mileage in following a second-rate footballing nation, which is clearly just holding onto that status by their fingernails. It is similar with the fans that ridicule the hype and excesses of the Premier League and then shed tears at the Play-off Final when their side does not make it to the elite.

We are told our players play in the greatest league in the world, but in reality it is a side-show to the bigger game. Anyone really shines, they are off to Europe and the big clubs. If it was not for billionaires pouring money into a couple of clubs, and Sky bankrolling it, we would be struggling in Europe.

Never mind the quality, feel the width.

We are just not good enough and have not been good enough for a half century or more. How much evidence do they need? Instead they keep berating the FA as if that body roots around and then appoints the most incompetent managers and does so in an uncanny succession, never once faltering and unearthing someone who can win tournaments.

The players are “gutted” we are told. But doubtless when they get back and recover from the “hurt” after a week or so, a review of their bank balances will be the soothing balm. And the really important stuff is coming up: The Premier League - the finest league in the world. Sound the trumpets loud, in a vain attempt to get anyone outside the UK to listen.

Yes, I know the Premier League footage sells round the world. They pack the Palace Theatre out for the pantomime season but that still does not make it Shakespeare.