England were left frustrated when they only came away with goalless draw from their away clash with Israel in March and were booed off at the final whistle.

Now their only realistic chance of going through to the finals next summer is if Guus Hiddink's side encounter the same sort of problems next month in the penultimate fixture of their group.

If Russia collect three points then qualification, at the expense of England - will be a formality as they face whipping boys Andorra at home in their final game.

England's 2-1 setback in Moscow on Wednesday evening undid all their good work of the previous six months and left Cole and his team-mates shell-shocked.

The Chelsea midfielder said: "A four-minute spell in the second half has cost us and now qualification is out of our hands. Football is a harsh game sometimes, especially at this level, and four minutes changed the outlook completely.

"I really don't know what to say. The only thing you can do now is try and put it into perspective but we are all as down as you possibly can be.

"What can you do? We are all really hurt. We felt we did enough but what can you do? You've just got to pick yourselves up and it is out of our hands now which isn't a good thing.

"Why are we not going to make it? There are all sorts of connotations, especially early on in the group, but we will all stick together and there is still a slim hope we can get there.

"As long as there is a slim hope we will keep on fighting. We just have to hope that Israel show the same resilience against Russia as they did against us.

"Basically our fate is in Israel's hands. We need them to take something off Russia if at all possible.

"But I'm just gutted. The next month will be hard but what we get paid to do is to be professional and we will get on with things."

Wayne Rooney echoed the feelings of Cole and admitted: "We just have to hope and pray that things turn around again for us somehow in the remaining games.

"We are all devastated. It is difficult to take. We had got ourselves back into a position where things were in our own hands.

"Two lapses of concentration cost us the game and it is difficult to qualify now."

Goalkeeper Paul Robinson said: "It was a low dressing room afterwards. We've come off some very good results and we were quite optimistic.

"It is out of our hands but we've got a game against Croatia and we need to stay focused. We've got to get a result and we've got to remain positive and hope the other results go our way."