England is a broken footballing nation, don’t blame Roy Hodgson

England suffered defeat at a major tournament on Monday. That has happened before, but never before has the national team suffered such indignity - at least not since 1950 and the infamous loss to the USA’s part-timers. Iceland - a country of just 330,000 inhabitants - their conquerors, this time. But England’s failure was the consequence of more than just one team’s extraordinary efforts.

Indeed, rationale and reasoning behind yet another major tournament implosion must go deeper. It has to. The sample size is simply too big to take Iceland’s victory in Nice as nothing more than a fluke. England are the most tediously tragic team in international game and there must be an explanation for that.

It’s been 20 years since England last played with any sense of freedom at a major tournament, with Paul Gascoigne the last man to seemingly thrive under the focus of an entire country. Since then there have been dismal, insipid, unacceptable performances at every major tournament England have participated in. Something about the country is not conducive to the demands and rigours of international football.

England is a broken footballing nation. Roy Hodgson cannot shoulder the blame for that all on his own, even if his performance as national team manager over the past four years warrants scrutiny and examination. There is a fracture that runs all the way through the national game and now is the time to finally address it.

Domestically, a existential dilemma appears to have manifested itself in the national side. There is a vast disconnect between the Premier League - the most lucrative, most exhilarating football league on the planet - and the England team. Is it any coincidence that since England became home to a division of such prestige the country’s national team has deteriorated with every major tournament?

Some say the cosmopolitan, multinational nature of the Premier League has a direct impact on the quality of the England team, but that would only be a valid point if the English top flight was devoid of homegrown talent. It is not.

Dele Alli, Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy in particular were among the brightest stars of the 2015/16 Premier League season, with only Riyad Mahrez ensuring that the campaign’s individual awards season wasn’t a complete sweep for the English. So why did all three struggle so badly at Euro 2016?

Over and over again the same questions are asked for the England national team, but perhaps the most common one poses why the nation’s best players toil so consistently in their efforts to translate club form into country form. It’s the thing that forces more hands to heads, more palms to faces, than anything else.

Peter Crouch, a man who has experience of what it’s truly like to be an England player, believes it’s the pressure. He says English players are weighted down by the expectations of an entire nation, but that’s the same for every team at a major tournament. Does Crouch think German, Italian, French players or any other team of such stature don’t feel pressure?

The difference is that other countries seem to thrive under that pressure. England too readily buy into the idea of being England, whether they do that consciously or not. No matter the talent they have, no matter the qualification results they have racked up, England are expected to be England at every major tournament they play. Maybe that’s what Crouch means when he talks about the pressure England players feel.

Hodgson’s resignation has left English football in a state of flux, with no plan for which direction will now be taken. The inquest into what went so badly wrong at Euro 2016 is raging, but it will be fleeting. Soon enough the summer transfer window will open and the Premier League will take centre stage once again.

That is perhaps the biggest impression left on the English national team by its all-consuming domestic top flight. While Hodgson’s resignation will make back page news for the coming week, the game will move on without proper assessment. His successor will be hired without the fundamental investigation England so badly needs, largely because the public pressure that demands so will have disputed by that time.

It’s why so many fans of clubs like Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United make a point of not supporting England. The Premier League matters so much, engulfs so much, it’s difficult to pursue a fandom in anything else, especially something like international football which requires the putting aside of so much rivalry. They say England players don’t really care. In truth, the public don’t seem to care much either. That’s the biggest problem.