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Time to go, Fabio?

Fabio Capello has been hammered in the British press following England's World Cup exit. © Getty Images

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If Fabio Capello is unwise enough to glance at the UK papers on Monday morning he will be left in no doubt that he is being seen as the main scapegoat for England's dismal performance at the World Cup - and that the calls for him to go are loud and clear.

Fabio Capello has been hammered in the British press following England's World Cup exit. The Mirror headline "Fabigo" sets the tone for what follows. Describing him as an "ageing out-of-touch manager ... when it mattered, he got it wrong - all of it, all wrong." It concluded: "he has paralysed this team, not inspired it. He must be the first to go."

"Time to go, Fabio," headlines The Sun, adding: "Clear off, and take these losers with you." While former England boss Terry Venables gives a wise-after-the-event swipe: "I must admit I was not altogether surprised because, in my view, it had been coming for months."

The Guardian's Kevin McCarra criticises Capello's tactics as tired and outdated: "England leave the World Cup and should take up immediate residence in a museum of football history... All England's exertions could do was pile up ever more proof of their inadequacy."

In the Daily Mail, Matt Lawton gives Capello his less-than-wholehearted support. "His record says he is one of the finest managers in world football but out here his approach looked horribly out-dated ... but what would the future hold if [the FA] did now decide to cut their ties with the Italian? Do we really believe Roy Hodgson..."

He concludes with an observation many have overlooked - namely that the cash-strapped FA might not be able to afford removing its manager. "The FA have to pay Capello anyway. The best part of £12 million if they want him to go now or over the next two years. They should get their money's worth and start the recovery process immediately with Capello at the helm."

"They think it's all over for Capello," writes Henry Winter in the Daily Telegraph. "It cannot be long now. A proud man blessed with an accomplished record in club football, Capello failed to listen to those within the FA knowledgeable about the pitfalls of guiding England at tournaments. [He] must take ultimate responsibility for not using his resources better."

John Dillon, of the Daily Express, piled on the tabloid misery. Under the headline: "As Fab would say himself, a big mistake" he writes: "The Golden Generation are in their final meltdown. The World Cup campaign finishes as it started, as a calamity... The poor bloody hordes in red shuffled into the chilly, bleak night, utterly crushed and betrayed once again. And nobody even dared to ask - where do we go from here?"

Matt Dickinson in The Times says the role of England manager made Capello a mug - "a serial winner, a guarantor of success until he slipped on England's toxic tracksuit".

"There will be kneejerk calls for his dismissal this morning but, while his position must be part of any inquest, we must also consider how English football's wider failings dragged him down. Like Sven-Goran Eriksson before him, Capello turned out more English than Sam Allardyce. It happens to them all in the end, even the foreign ones. Especially the foreign ones.

"Capello made mistakes, and some big ones, but against a backdrop of English failings that go far deeper than the man at the top. [And] having recruited Capello on the basis that "if he cannot succeed, then we really are screwed", the FA is left with an uncomfortable conclusion this morning, on top of the Italian's watertight contract."

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