McClaren shoulders responsibility

The shock of missing out on a first major championship since the 1994 World Cup had not had time to sink in before McClaren was booted out of his job by a unanimous vote of the Football Association board.

"I feel I have let the fans down and the country down," said McClaren. "I knew that if we didn't qualify that would put the board in a difficult position."

He added: "I can understand the decision, the reaction and the criticism. It hurts and disappoints me but that is football and it will make me stronger in the future."

His 18 matches in charge make McClaren the shortest-serving England manager in history, a tenure that saw the Three Lions record just nine wins and end by conceding three goals on home soil for the first time in 35 years.

Yet the statistics will mean little next summer when Euro 2008 kicks off without English representation.

However, the former Middlesbrough coach was willing to offer a seemingly ridiculous claim the players who have failed him so badly are capable of bringing glory to a nation and also the England job is not quite the impossible task many believe it to be.

"My time has gone," he said. "It has been a huge challenge but it is also an honour and I would not regard it as a poisoned chalice at all.

"Obviously, you are judged by results and they have not gone my way. In that sense we have failed. I take full responsibility for that. The FA employed me and now they have unemployed me.

"We have not had the success to reward the expectation that has been there. I think it will come and I genuinely believe that this group of players and the ones coming through will do it."