Difficult not to feel some sympathy with Spain, given our record for pre-tournament injuries, especially when the player involved could have been one of the stars of the World Cup…but Fernando Torres is set to miss six weeks after undergoing surgery for a torn cartilage in his right knee.

Weirdly, Torres was one of the first Panini stickers I got with my free album today – so Javier Mascherano, Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, Steven Pienaar and Rio Ferdinand might be also be cursed.

Incidentally, having watched almost the entire Spurs v Chelsea game last night (including Drogba’s bizarre ‘groin injury’ performance after half time) I’m now convinced that Michael Dawson of Spurs needs to be in the England squad. The problem for Dawson is that we only have two friendlies left…against Mexico at Wembley on Monday May 24th and versus Japan at the UPC Arena (in Graz, Austria) on Sunday May 30th.