England

A lot has been written in the press recently about Wednesday's failure and the poor performance of certain individual players. However, I think most of the problems came from before that game but some serious mistakes were also made in the run up to the Croatia game.

1) A 0-0 draw against Macedonia was a very poor performance. Other performances were also less than they could have been. This, more than anything else, is the real root cause of the failure.

2) Playing Michael Owen in a meaningless friendly against Austria 5 days before the crucial final game and his getting injured when they were already missing Wayne Rooney through injury. Peter Crouch had an excellent game on Wednesday but was unable to carry the team by himself.

3) Playing an inexperienced goalkeeper in his first competitive international in the crucial final game against Croatia showed a lack of judgment. Scott Carson is a good player and will one day be England's first choice. It would of been much better playing the vastly more experienced David James due to Paul Robinson's loss of form and confidence.

4) Injuries to the likes of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole and Gary Neville really destroyed the heart of the England defence.

5) Playing Gareth Barry, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard in midfield alongside Joe Cole and Shaun Wright-Phillips suggested a defensive mindset; which with the already decimated defence played into Croatia's hands.

A fair number of people have come out in defence of Steve McLaren, especially people like Sir Alex Ferguson, who I respect immensely. However, I believe the FA have got it right and McLaren's position had become untenable. His tactical choices and decision making has been woefully inadequate and he's paid the only price he could.

A number of people have already made statements of intent and/or interest.

A lot of people have expressed a desire for Jose Mourinho to be considered; especially after the success he had at Chelsea. But, the truth is that Mourinho isn't a hugely experienced figure and virtually anybody could have had success with Chelsea. Could Mourinho really create a world-beating team without vast financial resources to go out and hire the best players but instead have to rely on a national pool? It's possible but I don't think he's experienced enough to take such a poisoned chalice as the England job.

Other names in the mix have included Martin O'Neill, Sam Allardyce and Harry Redknapp. Whilst O'Neill has had great success with Celtic, he has ruled himself out of the job. Meanwhile, both Sam and Harry both have vast managerial experience but neither have had major success. People will say the same about McLaren and I've always thought he was a poor second choice after the foul-up in the attempt to recruit Luis Felipe Scolari. Big Phil, along with the current Russian coach. Gus Hiddink have also been mentioned. Both would be pretty good choices.

But, of all the names bandied about the one that intrigues me the most is Fabio Capello. A manager with a proven record of success throughout continental Europe. He's not currently employed by any club and wouldn't cost the FA any sort of compensation payment. Capello is highly respected within the game and would be the sort of big-name appointment that would give the FA a much needed boost.