Former Everton and West Ham star Bilic criticised ex-coach Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad of talented players for failing to gel into a team.

He told The Sun newspaper: "They were no good - they were nothing. They were so boring.

"I have never seen in my life such a great collection of players play as defensively as they did."

Going into the World Cup tournament with high expectations, much of them self-inflated, England failed to progress beyond the quarter-finals in Germany, losing to Portugal on penalties.

Bilic replaced Zlatko Kranjcar as Croatia coach after the Croats failed to reach the last 16 in Germany.

But he said England's overall performance had left him speechless.

"They just didn't play as a group, they played as individuals. And I really thought they had a great chance to win the World Cup.

"You can look back now and say the team had had a long season, they were under pressure, there were big expectations on them - but they are all just excuses.

"I couldn't even explain it to my nine-year-old son. I just don't know."

Although Eriksson left his post after England's World Cup journey came to an abrupt end, Bilic is not yet convinced about the calibre of his successor, Steve McClaren, after seeing England toil to a 1-0 win in Macedonia last month.

"I can't understand why they played so defensively at the World Cup," he said.

"But they were the same against Macedonia, so I don't think it was all down to Eriksson."

Croatia have picked up one point so far - from their opener , a 0-0 draw with Russia last month

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