England, Turner and the O's

First things first, the flying of England scarves and flags next Summer as the country goes World Cup daft, looks like it will extend into the third week. The draw was kind to England yesterday with relatively weak opposition in the shape of Algeria, Slovenia and the US of A. The Yanks shouldn't be under-rated but they are eminently beatable. Unfortunately, the hype that goes with a draw like this will lead to enormous pressure on the squad once again and every game of the qualifiers will be hiding-to-nothing matches.

The OS is reporting that a settlement with Brentford has been reached over the sell-on clause in the Michael Turner deal. Unfortunately, they aren't revealing anything else in terms of the detail. Hopes were high of a large windfall from Turner's move to Sunderland as we appear to have waived our original sell-on fee from the £350,000 to Hull in return for a share of any potentially larger sell-on fee from the Tigers. The bad news in all this is that the heat from the debate dissipated with news that the rumoured £12m fee to Sunderland was nonsense and that the Black Cats struck a cash-desperate Hull for a price of £4m. Half of 15% of that sort of money is loose change in the circumstances.

As one door closes, another has opened. Sky have picked our mouth-watering clash at home to the mighty Leyton Orient at the end of January as a live game, so it will now be played on Monday 25th.