Mystery Man Lockwood
Wednesday, 6th Jun 2001 01:08

The identity of George Burley's targeted lower division midfielder continues to remain a mystery. The only things certain are that the player comes from either the Second or Third Division and is English and is from a club which can afford to turn down bids from Premiership clubs.

That rules out many of the recent players linked. David Prutton, linked again today, plays in the First Division, Jason Koumas is Welsh, while a great number of the rest of them are Belgian.

Of the players linked to Town in the easily memorable past the only player who seems to fit the bill is Leyton Orient's Matt Lockwood. The 24-year-old O's man is a versatile wide left midfield man who also plays at full-back and is a player who has often been touted as a future Premiership player and has been linked to Town on a number of occasions.

With Barry Hearn in charge Orient can presumably turn down offers which they don't feel are up to the mark.

That's our guess, but feel free to post who you think it is on our Town Topic: http://www.twtd.co.uk/towntopics

class="storytext">Pablo Couñago was a goal hero again last night as the Spanish U21s beat the Israel U21s 1-0. Town's new signing continued his scoring run with a goal just before half-time. On Friday he scored a hat-trick against Bosnia as Spain won 5-1.

Titus Bramble missed out on another U21 cap as it was left until too late for him to travel. He'll probably be glad to have missed it as they lost 3-1 and had Luke Young and John Terry sent off in the last minute.

Bramble was due to travel late after attending his grandmother's funeral on Monday. George Burley said: "Titus wasn’t with them for four or five days and it just wasn’t feasible to fly out there at the last minute. I have spoken to Howard Wilkinson and he has been in contact with Titus. There is no problem with the situation."

Elsewhere Sean Friars, leaving Town when his contract is up on June 30th, was in the Northern Ireland U21 team which lost 4-0 in the Czech Republic.

Hermann Hreidarsson should be back for Iceland's game with Bulgaria in Reykjavik tonight while Matt Holland will step into Roy Keane's boots for Ireland against Estonia. Holland said: "All I can do is give it my best. It's no mean feat filling Roy Keane's boots, there's a lot to learn from him." Presumably tackling Alfe Inge Haaland isn't one of them.

Amir Karic is likely to play for Slovenia in Switzerland.

Photo: Action Images

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