Cole, Young earns online wrath for missing penalties

In a shameful act, a series of fans went about criticising and even racially abusing England's Ashley Young and Ashley Cole after the duo missed their respective penalty kicks in the Euro 2012 quarter-final tie-breaker against Italy on Sunday leading to England's exit from the tournament (losing 2-4).u00a0

While Young saw his shot hit the cross bar, Cole's attempt was neatly saved by Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon diving to his left. Needless to say, both Englishmen were distraught.

Ashley Cole and Ashley u00a0Young

However, online social networking site, twitter was abuzz with criticism for the Ashleys. In fact, some fans even went on to racially abuse the players and police were said to be reportedly probing this online racially directed campaign.

The tweeter is said to have later written: "All I got to say is this was just a joke, you guys need to relax, police know i was kiddin around and they won't bother me hopefully, cheers."

Another post read: "The police won't bother me mate I can assure you that."

A London Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "We are aware of alleged racist comments on Twitter following last night's England game and have launched an investigation. But no arrests have been made arrests at this early stage."u00a0

England manager Hodgson defends Young, Cole
England manager Roy Hodgson defended Ashley Cole and Ashley Young after they missed their penalties in Sunday's Euro quarter-final shoot-out defeat to Italy. "You saw Cole's penalty in Champions League final and you've seen Young convert many for Watford and Man United. We were confident we had five really good penalty-takers but unfortunately two missed. But anyone can miss a penalty. A player's reputation should not be forged on a penalty shoot-out but on the four games and in those four games we have not lost," he said.