Stuart Pearce slammed his side s efforts in their 1-0 loss to Italy, as England made a poor start to the European Under-21 Championships.
Despite having a Craig Dawson header ruled out in the first half, which would have given them a lead, Pearce was angered by his players failure to fire on the big stage in Tel Aviv.
Lorenzo Insigne scored from a set-piece in the 79th minute to give Italy all three points and see them to the top of Group A a result that left the English coach frustrated.
The performance was very poor. The players know that it wasn t good enough, the better team won, he said.
The positive is we played that badly and only lost 1-0. We were awful.
The result ended England s nine-game unbeaten run that dated back to 2011, although Liverpool midfielder Jordan Henderson was aggrieved that Dawson s header was not allowed.
I don t understand why it wasn t given at all, none of the players really understood what was going on and I can t explain it really. It was very confusing, he told Sky Sports.
I thought the referee was pointing at the kick-off spot so everyone was celebrating. It was a good few minutes until they took a free-kick and everyone was a little bit baffled to be honest, but that s football.
Scorer of the ruled-out goal, Dawson was not fussed he was denied what would have been his second goal in three appearances for the Under-21s.
I didn t think there was too much wrong with the goal but it s one of those things and the referee has obviously seen something that we didn t, Dawson said.
It seemed a bit delayed his reaction but we realised that it was ruled out. It s not something the players have talked about.
Pearce said regardless of whether the goal was given, Italy were still deserved winners.
They caused us problems all night. We didn t get any performances from our bigger players, he said.
We were well beaten and we can t grumble. We were stagnant and we had nobody running in behind (Italy s defence).
It took a long time to disallow the goal and I m not sure what it was for. But I can t bleat about that because Italy should have had a penalty.
I m not angry you can t go stomping and shouting in the dressing room. The result has gone, we have two days before we play again so it s important that we get the players in the right mentality and inspire a better performance.
We will need to win both games now but that s tournament football, it s unforgiving.
England s next fixture is against Norway in Petach-Tikva on Saturday.
