Wayne Rooney denies reports that England players lost faith in Roy Hodgson

England captain Wayne Rooney insists Roy Hodgson always had the players' support, labelling reports they had lost faith in the outgoing manager "completely untrue".

Monday night witnessed one of the most embarrassing nights in English football history as Iceland, the smallest nation to ever grace a major tournament, secured a shock 2-1 win in Nice.

It saw England exit Euro 2016 at the last-16 juncture and led to Hodgson's resignation within 20 minutes of the final whistle.

Reports emerged on Tuesday that senior players had doubted the manager's ability to lead the team to the latter stages before the game, but captain Rooney has rejected those reports.

In a statement released to Press Association Sport, the England skipper said: "In response to recent media reports, I'd like to say that is completely untrue.

"On behalf of the players, we completely supported the England manager but we understand his reasons for stepping down.

"We had absolute faith in the build-up and throughout the tournament."

When asked about senior players supposedly losing faith in him, Hodgson told a press conference on Tuesday afternoon: "If it was true then they disguised it well from me and coaching staff.

"We had no indication from the players that they were anything but behind what we were doing, behind the game plans that we had. They tried hard to execute them.

"In the game against Slovakia we dominated the game from start to finish and all we could be accused of from a critical point of view was that we didn't take our chances."

Hodgson was understandably downbeat 18 hours on from standing down as England manager.

He said: "I don't really know what I am doing here, I thought my statement last night was sufficient. I'm no longer the England manager, my time has gone, but I was told it was important that I appear here.

"I guess that is partly because people are smarting from the defeat last night that saw us leave the tournament. I suppose someone has to stand and take the slings and arrows that come with it.

"My emotions are obvious ones. I am really disappointed. I didn't see the defeat coming. Nothing in the first three games here gave me any indication that we would play as poorly as we did.

"Unfortunately, they are one-off events. If one of those one-off events you don't turn up, even an opponent that are not entirely fancied like Iceland can beat you. That is what happened.

"I am still recovering from that. I am still fragile. It wasn't a good night, for anybody, because we wanted to stay in this tournament and do well. We believed if we could get to the quarter-final we would go beyond that. We go home as losers and we retain that wretched record of losing a tournament in the knockout stages."

After being encouraged by the team's displays in the group stages, Hodgson did not expect England to turn in such an abject performance against Iceland.

"It is too early to say (regrets)," he said. "It certainly is the wrong day for me to be talking about it because emotions are too raw.

"Hindsight does always serve the purpose of putting you in the right and if you don't have it you find yourself very often in the wrong.

"I don't think before last night's game the performances had given me any real cause for concern, other than us not taking our chances.

"I didn't see, and neither did the players, the sort of performance we gave last night that saw us knocked out. Iceland were possibly the better team on the night despite us having the best of possession."

Despite the way his reign ended, Hodgson enjoyed his time working as England manager and believes his successor will have a strong squad to operate with in the future.

"I am not only privileged to work for the FA and England, I have enjoyed working for the FA and England," Hodgson added.

"I have had great support. I feel the people around me have appreciated the work that we have tried to do, even though it has not brought the results we would have liked."

Hodgson also says he is willing to aid Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn, outgoing chairman Greg Dyke and vice-chairman David Gill in their search for his successor if needed.

"They know, Martin knows, Greg Dyke knows, David Gill, if he is going to be involved, knows that if I can be of assistance in any way whatsoever, I will do. But it will be up to them to come to me," he said.

"As far as I am concerned now I am an ex-England manager and can only wish the new England manager the best of luck. I think, as I said in my statement, that I am leaving a good group of players to work with."

Glenn, speaking to the media alongside Hodgson in Chantilly, apologised to England's fans in the wake of their latest failure at a major tournament.

Glenn, who along with the FA's technical director Dan Ashworth and Gill are set to oversee the appointment of the new coach, also vowed to leave no stone unturned in seeking future success.

Hodgson ends his spell in charge having failed to win a knockout game at a major tournament, with England having bowed out to Italy on penalties at the quarter-final stage of Euro 2012 and exiting the World Cup in Brazil two years later at the group stage after picking up a solitary point against Costa Rica.

"It's a sorry," said Glenn. "When it comes to the games that really matter at the business end of a tournament, we've come up short.

"Having been a fan before I started this job... I get it. We're very disappointed. Iceland are a doughty opponent but we didn't punch our weight.

"Roy's spent four years building a team. It's a much stronger team, it's a much stronger set-up. Roy, Iceland is not your legacy.

"We felt that we'd really given the team, and the squad and the country, the best chance of success... we clearly need to go and do more.

"It's really important that we get this right. We've got a lot of strength in this squad.

"It's important that we get this right so we are going to be canvassing opinion from former managers, current managers and players."

Glenn also says they will look at the reasons why England are struggling to compete in the latter stages of tournaments.

"We're not denying the fact that the perennial problem, when we get to the business end of a tournament - and we're in the tournament business - is that England seem brittle," he said.

"We need to understand why that is. In terms of the FA's commitment, we want to move to a new approach and its our commitment to say that in future tournaments, every game, every match, every half, we will punch our weight and go to tournaments as contenders, and get over this brittleness that I've talked about where we can hit a banana skin and really under-deliver."