Oh yes, you may want to trot out all of the usual excuses .. over-hyped individuals, crap manager, the fact that the entire playing squad just didn't really give a shit .. but there's actually something much more dark and sinister going on.

I jest not, in the spring edition of the FA's Insight Journal, there's a long-winded and completely baffling article by Terry Daly - yes, Arthur's brother.

It boasts of a year long series of meetings between some of the biggest chiefs in the game, and isolates Newton's Second Law of Force and Motion and various stuff about universal micro conditions, the ball's horizontal velocity being controlled by its vertical 'drop' weight in space, and some interesting bits about cotton panties.

Daly himself says: "You can't coach players to control the horizontal force of their passes, shots and headers with vertical weight if you think weight itself is horizontal. It's a contradiction in terms and it is crippling football performance, not just in England but across the world."

(And if you think I'm making this up, head for www.dalyslaw.com.)

He goes on to quote our Euro 2008 failure and Andriy Shevchenko's catastrophic loss of form at Chelsea as key evidence of this coaching cock-up, but strangely fails to attribute the same blame to the disappearance of Michael Ricketts.

Also, if he states that this is a world problem, how come the rest of the world, and Europe in particular - have managed to get their arses into gear and have qualified for major tournaments? And what's more, when they're there, they know how to take a penalty? Or do we need Galileo to explain that one? Or Vorderman, maybe?

Isaac Newton? You've got as much chance of pinning this one on Eddie Newton...