Published: 31 March, 2016
by RICHARD OSLEY

THE generous bods at UEFA have expanded this summer’s European Championships so that basically everybody has qualified. Only the traditional stragglers, San Marino, Luxembourg and Scotland, are staying at home for this one.

While we’ll see the likes of Slovakia and Albania at Euro 2016, the Netherlands somehow failed to qualify to the party everyone was invited. It is a measure of just how poor Holland have become, failing not only to win their group but also to finish second or third. They are a team in crisis.

And yet, despite being not as good as Albania, and even fielding a few reserves, our Dutch friends still managed to roll over Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley on Tuesday evening.

The full scoreboard read: Tottenham Hotspur 1, The Netherlands 2.

No, it didn’t really, but if you had spent the Easter weekend reading the soapy sports sections of our national newspapers, or dared to turn on a football phone-in or opened up Twitter, you might have been forgiven for thinking that England and Tottenham Hotspur were one and the same thing. It was Tottenham Hotspur, the Spurs fans crowed inanely to themselves, which won the friendly against Germany on Saturday evening. On they prattled about the golden generation, who had done well against the unbothered-looking world champions.

And yet by Tuesday evening, it was quickly time for the responsibility to be shared. We were back to being England again, and not simply Tottenham Hotspur. Walker, Rose, Dier, Kane and Alli all played a role in this miserable defeat, but suddenly, of course, none of them were to blame.

You will dismiss me as a sour Arsenal fan – I’m not, as I wouldn’t swap Alexis Sanchez or Mesut Ozil for any of these golden generation types.

But there is a serious point about crowning players at international level before they have actually achieved anything but victories in friendlies.

How many times over the past 20 years have we got our hopes up, only to find that when the going gets serious at the World Cup or Euro Championships, we are suddenly deflated by either stage fright or incompetence. England spent all those years slogging away with Gerrard and Lampard in midfield, for example, and nothing came of it. How brilliant we were always told they were. It ended in disappointment at every turn. If Tottenham Hotspur can’t beat Holland, how on earth are they going to return from France with the trophy?