Having the gall to criticise the England football team does NOT mean I'm not patriotic - Carole Malone

So Yes, I’m a patriot.

However in the days since the England team were skewered in the European final against Spain I’ve been told I’m being unpatriotic in having the gall to criticise the way it played, in daring to voice the view that they were never, ever going to win against Spain because Spain were fantastically good - and England wasn’t.

I never said I didn’t WANT England to win. I just said that having seen the team play in the ( very easy draws) we had - that I didn’t believe we would win because the lads simply weren’t playing attacking or inspired football.

And Yes, maybe I thought that because I’m too old to believe in the “Hope over Experience thing.” It’s been 58 years since England’s (male) players won a major football tournament and so the “hoping” tends to be tempered with what I know and how I’ve seen various England teams perform.

And yet despite its dismal record the England team has always had the unstinting support of the entire nation whenever it plays. I’ve watched the excitement, the national fervour build as whatever championship it happens to be draws nigh. I’ve seen first-hand the full throttled support and encouragement the always gets and it never fails to move me the way an entire nation comes together to cheer them on.

For years I’ve listened to the ever hopeful chants of “ Football’s coming home” and I’ve felt the longing in people’s hearts for their footie dreams to come true. But having felt it doesn’t mean I can’t hear my own heart telling me one simple fact - that we had no chance of winning against Spain at the weekend because the simple truth is we weren’t good enough. And the team, its manager Gareth Southgate and the rest of us have to accept that or we will never be able to do what it takes to win.

And Southgate HAS accepted it by resigning. In fact what he is did is as fine a display of patriotism as I’ve seen. Because he IS desperate for the team to win and for our country to be honoured and he’s been gracious and noble enough to accept that’s not going to happen under him.

“Thank You England - for everything. It’s been the honour of my life to play for, and to manage England. It’s meant everything to me,” he said in his resignation speech.

And I truly believe it has. Which is why Southgate IS the ultimate patriot because in resigning he’s doing what’s best for his team and his country.

He knew it wasn’t a fluke that Spain won. Afterwards he tried to say England still had a chance of winning until the 82nd minute when Spain scored for a second time. I’m sorry – we never going to win because the truth is we just didn’t do enough. And I’m damned if I can see why its un patriotic to say so.

Spain gave us all a lesson in how to play attacking football and I say that not having a clue about the finer points of the tactics and strategy of the game. But I’ve got eyes. I could SEE England weren’t attacking. I could see they were the weaker side. Which is why they lost. Is it really unpatriotic to say that? Or am just being a realist? Telling the truth?

And Yes, I know the disappointment for many is crushing - not least for the players but until people are honest how the Hell are we ever going to win? Southgate knew that which is why he’s gone.

Of course Harry Kane didn’t help when he threw his toys out of the pram after football pundits Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer both criticised the team’s play – particularly after the Denmark game. Kane said: “ Pundits should remember what it’s like to wear the shirt. They should be more supportive.”

Sorry, but it’s not a pundit’s job to be blindly supportive. It’s their job to analyse the game, point out the good, the bad and the brilliant if, and when, it happens.

It’s not their job to soothe the battered egos of the players - some of the most highly paid people on earth- and say

“ There There – there’s always next time.”

Thankfully Shearer and Lineker stuck by their guns and refused to retract a word of their criticisms. Good! Because if they had they’d have negated the purpose of their job.

Pundits like Lineker and Shearer get paid a fortune to tell it how it is so viewers need to be able to trust their analysis, their views, their experience. How can they do that if players are going to object every time they hear a painful truth?

Football is about winning. It’s not about coming second and England hasn’t won a major tournament in 58 years which is a massive problem.

As for Gareth Southgate? He’s a lovely, decent man who has done the right thing, the patriotic thing.

It’s obvious he was gutted for his players on Sunday. His disappointment for THEM was etched into his devastated face. But when he was interviewed after the match he said England had played brilliantly.

They hadn’t and if he truly believed that then he shouldn’t be in charge because losing matters.

Yes, Southgate wanted to support his gutted players, to soothe them when they were feeling desperate but his job is to equip them to win. And he hasn’t done that.

Young Jude Bellingham said it best: “ At some point we do have to deliver. We need to get England over the line.”

Yes, they do and when they do no-one will be screaming louder than me.

Patriotism is about loving your country and the people who represent it. There’s nothing that says fair criticism is unpatriotic or a betrayal. It’s the opposite.

It’s being desperate for it to BE better, to DO better. To do what its capable of!