McLaren: four mad minutes

Steve McLaren rued four mad minutes that may have cost England qualification for the Euro 2008 tournament in Austria and Switzerland. McLaren has said that he will not give up to the very end,

"The penalty was a disgrace," said McClaren, saying that the TV pictures confirmed the infringemen had occurred outside the area. "The linesman didn't give us any help."

McClaren said: "We looked comfortable. They ran out of ideas. Then we had a mad four minutes.

"The pitch was not an issue. There are no excuses. I couldn't fault the players." But he admitted it was hard to understand how England ended up losing a gane they were comfortable in an should have won.

"We rely on Israel getting a result now, but we'll keep going to the very end," he promised.