England

Martin Glenn: 'Mental weakness to blame for England finals failures'

By Giuseppe Labellarte, Reporter | 05 October 2017

Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn believes that mental frailty has been the root cause of England's recent failures on the international stage.

Martin Glenn has claimed that mental weakness is largely to blame for England's recent failures on the international stage.

The Three Lions have floundered in recent years, only getting as far as the quarter-finals once in the last five tournaments, at Euro 2012.

The Football Association chief executive believes that the governing body must do more to provide psychological support for the national team if they are to succeed at the highest level for the first time since 1966.

"The main thing we needed to take out of the Euros (where England lost to Iceland at the last-16 stage) was that we have not been leading-edge in terms of psychological support for our senior team," Glenn told Sky Sports News.

"England players do not travel well. They don't tend to play abroad, their familiarity with international camps isn't great.

"Gareth [Southgate] and Sam [Allardyce] before him, have taken that mantle on. That's not something that happens overnight, you have to work at it.

"There was a shock-factor to the way we lost against Iceland and the right people to blame were the FA. But out of failure you hopefully build. It was a failure and we are building."

England can book their ticket for the 2018 World Cup finals with a victory against Slovenia at Wembley on Thursday night.