England 2; Croatia 3

So there we have it, then. England defeated once more and failing to qualify for Euro 2008.

And what is the sole cause of this? Simple: gutlessness. All round, from top to bottom, gutlessness. Our gutless FA made the easy decision after Sven left by appointing a gutless manager, and he is residing over a bunch of gutless players who mostly do not have the bottle to take games like this by the scruff of the neck.

There are exceptions to the latter, of course. Wayne Rooney, had he been playing, would have played his heart out. And David Beckham, when he came on, was the only one who looked bothered. He actually RAN to take corners only a couple of minutes into the second half. Because he WANTED to achieve something. The rest couldn't have cared less.

And as for the manager: his own gutlessness was clear in the overly negative, counter-productive system he played from the outset. When he did grow the balls to do something at half-time, he brought on the right players - but took off the excellent Gareth Barry instead of the hopeless and non-existent Frank Lampard, whose converted penalty hardly makes his contribution worth anything more. And his inclusion of Lampard at all was laughable, given that everyone knows by now that he and Gerrard simply can't play together, and Barry and Gerrard had already proven to be a respectable partnership.

The FA, of course, should be ashamed of their own role in all this. They took the most convenient route in appointing McClaren after Eriksson left, when there were other managers available, proven World Cup winners, in the running. They scared Scolari off with unreasonable demands, and even recently had the chance to get Jose Mourinho in. But Mourinho didn't want the job if we failed to qualify, so the chance is now gone.

It goes without saying that they should sack McClaren immediately, but the problem is that there is no one to replace him with. Mourinho no longer wants it, and the only to other managers capable of the job - Wenger and Ferguson - are obviously not even in contention. The bottom line: they should have sacked McClaren weeks ago and appointed Mourinho to get us to the finals. But they would never do that, because they're cowards.

England didn't deserve to go through. And the blame can be placed at every level of the hierarchy.