Why can’t the English succeed at the game they gave the world?

As a journalist who has covered the England football team’s failings from 1992’s Shambles in Sweden to Monday’s Nightmare in Nice, I’ve been asking myself the same question for nearly a quarter of a century – why can’t the English succeed at the game they gave the world?

It’s a question most of the nation is asking again after yet another miserable failure, arguably the worst yet, as Roy Hodgson’s side were knocked out of Euro 2016 by the smallest nation ever to participate in the tournament.

But this should not have come as a surprise to those of us who have seen the same pattern repeated over the years, the pointless journey from hope to hopeless and back again.