In the aftermath of England once again reaching the knockout stages of a tournament only to be sent packing by the first decent team they play there has been a lot of doom and gloom. But surely there are some positives? You’re damn right there are, and no matter how small they may be, here they are…

1) Germany never managed to find the goal that would have taken the score to 5-1. Had they done so it would have effectively canceled out our thrashing of them in Munich back in 2001. Fortunately for us, it didn’t happen and we can still gloat. Altogether now, 5-1 even Heskey scored, 5-1 even Heskey scored…

2) The ‘Golden Generation’ is no more. For too long England’s so called golden generation have taken us into tournaments with the belief that they can actually win it. In theory that will never happen again. Capello is likely to turn to youth in England’s next friendly against Hungary in August and drop some of our under-performing stars

3) England are better than Argentina. Not only were we rewarded with watching Argentina get humiliated by the same German team that took us apart, but Argentina couldn’t even produce a single goal, let alone the 2 that England scored.

4) Steve ‘Schteve’ McClaren is in Germany.

5) Jamie Carragher has once again retired from international football. Yep that’s right, Jamie Carragher came out of retirement and managed to pick up 2 yellow cards in a game and a half of football. At best Carragher looked sluggish, at worst more like a snail. He’ll never play for England again.

6) The England U-21s and U17s are actually quite good. Despite what you’ll have no doubt read about England not producing any good players, our under 21s have reached the semi-final and the final in the last two European Championships and our U-17s beat Spain in the final to win the 2010 U-17 European Championship.

7) Errr, did I mention that Steve McClaren is in Germany?

So there you have it, seven reasons for England fans to be optimistic! Got any more? We’d love to hear them.