This was no FA Cup giant killing, Iceland have been better than England for two years.

As I listened to Radio 5 live after England were dumped out of Euro 2016 by Iceland, one thing stuck out more than any other. That was the shockingly simplistic and backwards insight of the pundits. I felt like if the FA take one iota of what they are saying on board then we will be useless at football for decades to come.

The English mentality that has got us to this shambolic point was being transmitted throughout the country in the same way as it is after every tournament elimination. Although in current circumstances, maybe it would be more appropriate to call it the ‘Little English’ mentality.

Nevermind what was said about the England performance, it was what was said about the opposition that simply begged belief.

‘A good, solid 1980s team’, ‘a workmanlike performance’, ‘they all know their jobs and work so hard for one another’, were the sort of terms used to describe the Iceland display.

Just what match were these people watching?!

Not every single England defeat to a ‘small’ nation, as Cristiano Ronaldo would put it, can be explained as if it’s an FA Cup tie where a more limited team won because they worked harder.

From the kick off after England went ahead to the final whistle, Iceland were superior in every department. They didn’t just work harder, they were fitter, more organised and technically superior.

It’s one thing to never look like conceding a goal – even a poor Slovakia team managed that – but it’s another to be able to run at defenders and play the kind of incisive passes that seemed well beyond the English players.

Some people will be ignorant enough to bring up that half the Iceland squad play their club football in Scandinavian leagues, or that Gylfi Sigurdsson is the only Icelandic player since 37-year-old substitute Eidur Gudjohnsen to have achieved anything in the Premier League. But nobody knows where the rest of the Icelandic squad will be in a few years.

I’ll never forget when Croatia knocked England out of Euro 2008 qualifying at Wembley with a number of players who played in the Croatian league. Across the media and across the England squad, the view aired in public was that not one Croatia player would get into the England team.

When you look back and think that that Croatia team had the likes of Luka Modric, Darijo Srna, Eduardo and the Kovac brothers, our arrogance was unbelievable.

Then-Croatia manager Slaven Bilic wasn’t shy of telling us as much either.

“I read in the papers that you said none of my players would get in the England team,” Bilic said. “Guys, wake up.”

“You didn’t lose tonight because of the tactics. We are simply a better team.

“I love your team but we are a better team.”

Nine years on from that defeat and we still haven’t listened to Bilic and woken up.

It seems as if nobody noticed that Iceland qualified easily for the tournament from a group containing Holland, Turkey and the Czech Republic, then qualified for the last 16 with the same amount of points as England in a much harder group.

So why is it such a shock that we we were beaten by a team that came into last night’s match looking better than England and with more momentum?

What gives us any right to think we are a world class football nation? The Premier League? Surely now the public can see it for what it is, a league where the style of football, the coaching and the refereeing is weighted towards English players and an English style.

The likes of Harry Kane and Dele Alli are not world class players because they have never even played competitive matches against the best Europe and the world have to offer.

It would probably be best if some of our players went abroad to be coached in a way that could see them reach the technical level of, first, Iceland and then, eventually, some of the world’s leading football nations. Unfortunately this will never happen because of the wages on offer in the Premier League.

Since the 2008 World Cup, we have only won four games at international tournaments, and in addition to the loss against Iceland, we have drawn to Algeria, Costa Rica, Russia and Slovakia.

Maybe it’s finally time to admit these nations are our level.