Peter Crouch has blamed exhaustion - caused by Wayne Rooney's sending-off - for England's dismal performance in their World Cup penalty shoot-out with Portugal.

The Liverpool striker believes the additional tiredness brought on by having to play for an hour with 10 men after Rooney's red card meant Sven-Goran Eriksson's side were not at their best when it came to taking spot-kicks.

Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Frank Lampard all failed to net as Portugal went through 3-1 on penalties.

Crouch said: "I honestly felt exhaustion set in at the end against Portugal. We'd played quite a lot of the game with 10 men and I think we took the penalties in a tired way.