Paper Round: Roy Hodgson savaged after England's 'ultimate humiliation'

England's 2-1 defeat to Iceland has been greeted with the predictable yet very much deserved raft of articles in Tuesday's papers, with "humiliation" being the word of the day. This is "England's ultimate humiliation" writes Paul Hayward in the Telegraph, adding that this is "a country where governments crumble, markets collapse and the nation's football team loses to Iceland". Daniel Taylor follows suit in the Guardian , describing the England performance as "full-on humiliation", while Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail agrees that "ultimate humiliation" is the best choice of words for England's embarrassing loss.

Paper Round's view: This result will go down as one of the biggest tournament upsets in the history of the England national team, but the most disappointing aspect was that you could see the "humiliation" coming.

One or two optimistic voices suggested that England had shown promising signs in the group stage, but the match in Nice in fact proved to be a culmination of all that had gone wrong before it.

England were even more disjointed, even more tactically confused and even more bereft of confidence than they had been against Russia, Wales and Slovakia.

The performances got steadily worse from England as the tournament went on, and the nation was left to wallow in disappointment at a time when it could really have done with a sporting success story to offer a distraction.

Roy Hodgson's resignation came so soon after the game in Nice that some even speculated that he'd prepared his statement beforehand, but it was still Hodgson who took the brunt of the criticism for England's lacklustre and disjointed display. Barney Ronay in the Guardian picked out the ex-England manager's insistence on trying to fit his star names into the team as a major flaw of his tenure, while Matt Lawton in the Daily Mail and Henry Winter in the Times laid the blame for England's Euro 2016 failure squarely at Hodgson's door.

Paper Round's view: Roy was such a frustrating England manager, as much because of what he did right than what he did wrong. In between the major tournaments Hodgson's England started to develop a squad and style that seemed to be pretty consistently understood and well-suited to both breaking down inferior teams and overcoming superior ones. Now admittedly that really should be the least you'd expect from a national coach, but it had been well over a decade since the England team felt so well put together.

But at major tournaments Roy lost his bottle. Twice.

Both at the last World Cup and at Euro 2016 he shelved his planning and preparations in favour of shoehorning in the big names. The outcome in France was a team led by Harry Kane in a system that the striker has never played in at Tottenham, supported by Jamie Vardy, Daniel Sturridge, Dele Alli, Wayne Rooney and Jack Wilshere - all of whom were playing in either unnatural or unfamiliar positions. It was a tactical mess that completely failed to get the best out of a squad with great potential, and for that reason alone Hodgson had to go.

Late substitute Marcus Rashford was the only player to emerge from the game with any credit as the national papers slammed the rest of England's players across the board. Harry Kane and Joe Hart came in for particular criticism, but all of the performance reviews will make for bleak reading for the players.

Paper Round's view: Hart endured a stinker of a tournament, but then so did the vast majority of England's players. Kyle Walker and Eric Dier did their reputations no harm, while Adam Lallana flitted around nicely in the group games - albeit with no end product to show for it. But the remainder were hugely disappointing.

Singling out Kane is understandable, particular given his eye-catchingly poor efforts from free-kicks and corners, which seemed to sum up England's lack of thinking as much as anything else against Iceland. But a well-executed first-half volley and a beautiful piece of control and vision to set Vardy away in the second half hinted at what Kane could have been capable of if used in a system that played to his strengths.

None of the England players covered themselves in glory, but then few played in roles that gave them the best opportunity to do so.

And let's not even get started on Rooney's tempo-slowing cross-field passes in midfield!

Read the full story (Telegraph)

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England's disastrous showing has understandably taken up much of the focus in the English media, but Iceland's extremely impressive team performance has not gone unnoticed, with Amy Lawrence of the Guardian, Iain Macintosh of ESPN FC and Jonathan Liew of the Telegraph particularly fulsome in their praise.

Paper Round's view: Iceland richly deserved their win. England huffed and puffed but rarely tested Hannes Halldorsson in the Iceland goal, and that was down in part to the impressive organisation and set-up of the underdogs.

But this was not a performance of minnows. Iceland didn't just sit back and put banks of four behind the ball. They looked to attack, and they did so dangerously when given the opportunity. Kolbeinn Sigthorsson's goal came from the best move of the match by either side and Iceland will fancy their chances of troubling hosts France in the next round if they can repeat such a high level of performance.