Of course, Drenthe is only a small part of the puzzle as to why the Dutch failed to make Euro 2016. Even so, his has been a precipitous decline and you can only wonder at how swiftly it can all be tossed away. The sad thing is in Holland they have heard Drenthe’s regrets about his lost career too many times, and they are no longer interested in listening.

Hodgson is right on Mark Noble - he cannot pick every available Englishman

It has been a great season for Mark Noble and West Ham, and his testimonial on Monday at the Boleyn Ground is a well-deserved tribute to 12 years’ service. None of that, however, guarantees him a place in the England squad for which the Football Association employs a manager to make the difficult judgements of choosing one player over another.

Noble has not been wronged by Hodgson, or let down. He just has not been selected to play for England, which happened to lot of good players – Howard Kendall, Billy Bonds, Steve Bruce - over the years. If the level of player some are getting indignant about being left out has gone from Grant Holt in 2012 to Noble now then that is a good indicator of the rising quality of Englishman available. And Hodgson was right about Holt.