England's footballers are heading home after their exit from Euro 2012.
Reflecting on their penalty shoot-out defeat to Italy in the quarter-finals, captain Steven Gerrard admitted the side had not played the best football at the tournament.
"At times the football hasn't been fantastic, we haven't blown people away," Gerrard said.
"The possession stats speak for themselves. Moving forward as a nation we do need to improve with the ball.
"Everyone has given everything they've got and that's all you can ask for.
"I think the supporters will agree with me that we have played for the shirt.
"I think we've performed to a better level at this competition than in previous tournaments."
Gerrard has been widely acknowledged as England's most impressive player at Euro 2012, and the Liverpool captain is keen to continue to lead the national side as well:
"I've loved it, I've loved the responsibility and I've enjoyed every minute of it.
"I've had a brief chat with the manager, I'm available as long as I'm wanted at this level. The manager has told me he wants me to continue and carry on."
Roy Hodgson was pleased his first tournament as England boss saw the side top their group, and he hopes they can now make enough progress to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
"We have to keep working hard to bridge any gap that might exist at the moment between ourselves and teams like Spain and Germany," he said.
"We saw with the German team at the 2006 world Cup they went into the finals highly unfancied with a new coach and with a lot of new young players.
"We've seen how well they've kicked on from 2006. We have to take heart from that. I like to think there's good reason for optimism."
