Daily Mail - Inexcusable. No, not the mistake but rather their scathing and relentless criticism of it. Thanks for the photo though.

I don’t want to make any excuses about the ball. It might have moved, I don’t know.

‘But it was my mistake and I’m responsible. I’ve made errors before and I’ve been big enough to get over them and I will this one.

I’m man enough to admit what went wrong and now it’s time to move on

You can jump on the “hate Rob Green” bandwagon. That’s easy to do. But by all means be my guest, his mistake tonight was a costly one – neither he nor I will deny that.

But where will that get us? An entire nation convinced that Robert ‘Lucifer’ Green has cost us the World Cup…a mere 90mins in. I dare not add that the majority of these new “Green-haters” either work for Shell, or more likely, thought that the USA game would be a walk-over. I’m not saying ‘all’ here, but to those who recognised the challenge of tonight’s game, I plead out to you; get behind Rob Green, get behind our side.

The Americans are a well drilled, well organised side who have the ability to both frustrate and, on their day, punish teams. Tonight was, by their own admission, their World Cup final. Although perhaps lacking in genuine, stand-out, world class talent, their spirit and determination counts for a lot. A side that beat Spain and who were 2-0 up against Brazil in the final of the Confederations Cup are not a team to be scoffed at. Let’s not use that as an excuse however.

Neither can we fall into the trap of allowing this goalkeeping error to cloud over other short-comings. One effort converted in 18 is not a good enough return.

Do it, lay the full blame at the feet of Rob Green. That’s certainly easy.

But how far will this mentality ever get us? Maybe to the quarters and knocked out on penalties, I would imagine.

I don’t want to experience any more ’maybe next time’ heartbreaks. Let’s man up on the Green issue and stop throwing stones – bottlers throw stones and run. Let’s show our support for the side who are out there, for the manager who picks the best team in his opinion, for the job. Let’s get alongside Green and prove to him that this nation doesn’t want him to fail – because reading and listening to comments tonight, you could be forgiven for thinking we do.

Our side, from Goalkeeper through to Striker has the ability to go a long way this World Cup – with the right mentality. Doing our bit and sticking the boot in will not help anyone. The hard thing to do is put it behind us and support us through the next two games. I trust Capello to take us through the group stage. Then, and only then, do we have a right to think about the last 16.

The three lions on their chest is hard-earned. As would a second star need to be.

Hard grit and determination will see us through, not a God-given right. Let’s not eat away at that by destroying a player just one game and one-point in.

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