Blame culture is killing football, rages City boss Pearce

Manchester City manager Stuart Pearce has lashed out at the blame culture which has swept across the national game.

The former England skipper was as disappointed at last night's 2-0 defeat in Croatia as any fan, yet he recoils in horror at the treatment being meted out to coach Steve McClaren and some of his players.

Read more: Blame me, says McClaren

Goalkeeper Paul Robinson in particular has come in for extreme criticism because of his part in Croatia's ludicrous second goal, which condemned England to their worst competitive defeat in 13 years.

Pearce, who still expects England to qualify for the Euro 2008 Championships, does not understand why Robinson is being fingered, agreeing with the Tottenham player's verdict that, under the circumstances, he could have done little to keep out Gary Neville's routine back pass.

And he is also at a loss to comprehend why every England game seems to trigger such knee-jerk reactions.

"There is too much of a blame culture, in society and football in general," said Pearce, whose own 78-cap international career was scarred by his 1990 World Cup semi-final penalty shoot-out miss against West Germany.

"It seems it has to be someone's turn every week - and I find that quite sad.

"I can't see how you can go from hero to zero in the space of one game. I don't work like that in my everyday life and certainly not as manager of Manchester City.

"What happened last night was totally unfortunate for Paul Robinson. The ball was played back to him as sympathetically as possible but once you have started your swing, there is not a great deal you can do about it."

The result, following on from Saturday's disappointing draw with Macedonia, has left England among a group of four teams on seven points.

Three of those team, plus Russia who have five points, play on November 15 when McClaren takes his team to Amsterdam to face Holland in a friendly.

Already, landing a top two berth in the seven-team pool looks far harder than it did when the draw was initially made, although Pearce remains confident.

"The result was disappointing but I am sure we have enough in our locker to qualify from the group, which is the overall aim," he said.