Roy Hodgson had our complete support, claims Wayne Rooney

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 yesterday 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 claims.

In a statement, 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.”

England’s humiliation became the most talked about on social media of the tournament, with some 4.8m tweets.

Following the final whistle in Nice, football fans went into overdrive as 135,000 tweets-per-minute were posted on the micro-blogging site, which was a record for any single moment at the championship.

Before England’s humiliation at the Stade de Nice, the previous high point had been the dramatic late goal from West Ham forward Dimitri Payet which helped France win the opening match against Romania in Paris which had generated 89,000 tweets-per-minute (TPM).

England goalkeeper Joe Hart — who allowed a low shot from Kolbeinn Sigthorsson to squirm under his arm and over the line, which sealed victory for the Icelanders — was the player with the most number of mentions during the match, followed by ineffective Tottenham forward Harry Kane and Rooney.

Since Euro 2016 began, the tournament has generated more than 60m tweets regarding the championship.

Other highlights which have seen a spike in posts include when Southampton striker Graziano Pelle scored in stoppage-time to seal Italy’s 2-0 victory over Spain at the Stade de France with 56,000 TPM, and 52,000 TPM when Real Madrid forward Gareth Bale beat Hart with a long-range free-kick to put Wales ahead during the Group B match in Lens, an encounter which saw some 2.1m tweets in total.

As Euro 2016 now enters the knock-out stages, France striker Antoine Griezmann, whose double salvo helped the hosts overcome the Republic of Ireland in their last-16 clash, is the most-talked about individual player.

Portugal forward Cristiano Ronaldo has yet to fire on all cylinders but makes the top-five player chat, as does Bale, Belgian playmaker Eden Hazard and Stoke midfielder Xherdan Shaqiri, whose spectacular late volley in Saint-Etienne was not enough to put Switzerland through to the quarter-finals as they went on to lose against Poland after a penalty shoot-out.