Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has done it again. It would appear he has signed yet another terrific young talent in the shape of Carlos Vela. The 18-year old Mexican scored a hat-trick on his full debut tonight against Sheffield United in the League Cup third round.

Vela has spent three seasons on loan at Celta Vigo, Salamanca and Osasuna while the player waited to receive a work permit in the UK. Click to continue reading...

FC Dallas has announced the acquisition of forward Jeff Rowland, who signed a senior developmental deal with the club prior to Monday's roster freeze deadline.Rowland, 24, was selected second overall in the 2006 MLS Supplemental Draft by Real Salt Lake, but never played a game for them after tearing his right ACL in preseason. Click to continue reading...

Tomorrow sees Arsenal take on Dynamo Kiev in the first game of the group stages of the Champions League in Kiev. Dynamo are not the power that they used to be, but the game will not easy.   Away from home, expect Arsenal to play a more defensive shape with van Persie dropping further into midfield giving [. Click to continue reading...

Mike Ashley is said to be traveling to Dubai to seek a buyer for Newcastle United. Mike Ashley - in Dubai today seeking buyers for club But the concern on Tyneside is the longer this goes on the worse shape the team will be in, after Saturday's disastrous display against Hull City. It's very unlikely a new [. Click to continue reading...

It's sad to take a look at the table at the moment. Granted, we've got a game in hand on many sides, but bottom of the league with one point from nine is not where we hoped to be in mid-September.

Tonight's game against Villa is a must win if we're to stay in touch with the teams who will by vying for the other European slots. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United lacked the leadership and shape on the field this afternoon, and it appears that the events off the field over the last couple of weeks seemed to have an impact on too many of the players this afternoon. Mike Ashley - didn't have the courage to show up The really bad news is that these [. Click to continue reading...

Before the events on Wednesday night, this article would have taken the shape of one of those typical, post-international period matches. However, one man has changed the face of English football this week. As a knock on effect, he has also changed this pre-match report. That man is Theo Walcott. Click to continue reading...

It looks like Arsenal could be given a timely boost for their season come Christmas, in the shape of Croatia striker Eduardo, who has set himself a loose target of a Chrimbo-time return to the Premier League fold. The Scotsman reports that the Croatian fox - ruthlessly nobbled after a nasty ... Click to continue reading...

Lots of complaints, whining, discussion, hand-wringing, etc. over the latest US World Cup qualifier, another 1-0 win away, this time in Cuba. I have some problems with some of the player selection (hello, Mr. Cooper; goodbye, Mr. Johnson), but have been overall satisfied with the job Bob Bradley has done. Click to continue reading...

Plenty more to come, but here are your post-game quotes...

D.C. UNITED HEAD COACH TOM SOEHNOn the win We didn't play up to our standards in the first half. It gets me frustrated again that we didn't go a better job of recognizing how to possess better and get our shape a little bit better. Click to continue reading...

The biggest shock of the day comes in the shape of Berbatov going to Manchester City?!

I just don't get it at all, he must be really desperate if he ends up there. They certainly won't be in the Champions League anytime soon. I know things look more secure than they did under Shinawatra if the buy out actually goes through but it would still be a risky move for Berba. Click to continue reading...

William Moore covers everything pertinent at HS.fi. I did an interview with Mika Lehkosuo this morning, you can here that at the Football in Finland podcast site. It's a bit rough and ready just now, but it will take shape over the next few weeks and hopefully develop into a weekly programme that doesn't bore [. Click to continue reading...

Musings on last night's European action 1. Liverpool have got problems. There is no fluidity or shape to the side and Rafa Benitez doesn't seem to know how to turn the situation around. Click to continue reading...

I didn't get to see this one, but apparently we're still playing like ass and now to top it off, we've lost Stevie G for 10-14 days. He's finally having that pesky groin operated on, which apparently is not that serious, but will keep him off the pitch for club and country. Hopefully, he will be back in shape for when Man U come to town on September 13th.

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Tight game with Wilkes Central getting more chances but Hibriten finishing one of their's. Hibriten showed great discipline maintaining their shape and remaining compact. Photos courtesy of N.M. Lewis. Click to continue reading...

It's fair to say that the finances of Manchester City could be in better shape at the moment. Owner Thaksin Shinawatra has had his assets frozen by the Thai government, meaning they are no longer prepared to throw bucketloads of cash to land the likes of Ronaldinho, and are instead ... Click to continue reading...

Three Lions fans have been praying for a quality forward for years.

For Ashton, this was going to be the year. Focused to impress the national team's new coach, nothing it seemed could hold the 24-year-old back.

He even gave up his favorite food -- pizza -- in an effort to be in the best shape possible, after English coach Fabio Capello told him to lose some weight. Click to continue reading...

After watching the Olympic semi-final between Argentine and Brazil, I couldn't help but notice how poor Ronaldinho played. He was, without doubt the worst player on the pitch, and in my opinion should of been taken off at half-time.

He was simply on the pitch by reputation alone. About an hour into the game, Brazil took of Rafael Sobis and brought on Alexander Pato. Click to continue reading...

Everton 2-3 Blackburn

Absolutely gutted about that but I can't really comment about the game 'cause I was down south at a family do...look at that midfield though. Arteta plus two defenders and a kid. Not strengthening the side during the close-season is little short of dereliction of duty. Click to continue reading...

If you love statistics, as I do, then you must read Daniel Finkelstein's Fink Tank column in the Times or on the TimesOnline website. Every week he and his team of geeks come up with some wacky statistics to explain why your favourite Premiership team is in the shape they are. This week his maths mates [. Click to continue reading...

The Wizards will be taking their one-win streak to Dick's Sporting Goods Park, hopefully doubling it to two, against the Colorado Rapids. There are reasons to be optimistic. First, they did play well for a big part of last week's game against Chivas. If the Wizards keep the offensive grit they showed last week and stay awake for the whole game, there is no reason why they can't bring home a win.

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Cory Gibbs, who once showed so much promise as an up and coming defender for the U.S. National Team to build around, has returned to MLS and will play for the Colorado Rapids. This is great news for the league, to have such a quality American player back playing in front of the American fans, but more importantly for Gibbs its a chance to resurrect his career given all of the injury problems that he has had and the amount of bouncing around Europe that he had done. Click to continue reading...

To all those wishing my wife well, thank you. The doctors still do not know what's going on, but they figured they could handle everything on an outpatient basis, so she's at least home now. Gallstones for sure, but the rest, still a mystery.

First, to RSL. The biggest news is taht it looks like Clint Mathis has been resigned. Click to continue reading...

To all those wishing my wife well, thank you. The doctors still do not know what's going on, but they figured they could handle everything on an outpatient basis, so she's at least home now. Gallstones for sure, but the rest, still a mystery.

First, to RSL. The biggest news is taht it looks like Clint Mathis has been resigned. Click to continue reading...

This season Portsmouth have shifted formation from the the 4-3-3 cum 4-5-1 system largely used last season to a greater emphasis on a 4-4-2 shape. To this end, manager Harry Redknapp has signed midfielder Diarra as well as Nigeria striker John Utaka, who is likely to compete for a midfield spot (Crouch and Defoe having secured the striking roles). Click to continue reading...

Spare a thought for Sparky Hughes. The poor lad did a magnificent job managing Blackburn but having jumped into the hot seat at Manchester City, he now finds his position increasingly untenable as key decisions are being made behind his back. Hughes, despite supposedly having a say in the shape of his squad, is facing the [. Click to continue reading...

Adidas are launching the new Chelsea Third Kit less than two weeks in to the new Premier League on the 28th August. The bright yellow kit modeled by defender Ashley Cole incorporates ClimaCool to keep the athletes at their peak by keeping them dry and at a comfortable temperature. The new ForMotion technology uses designs [. Click to continue reading...

The annual Trofeo TIM pits Italy's three biggest sides against each other and gives the Coaches a great chance to monitor their level of preparation. From 7.30pm in Turin, Inter, Milan and Juventus clash in the Trofeo TIM and here is what the papers say,Gazzetta dello Sport - Ancelotti: "Kaka is in shape and we want to win", Ranieri: All that matters to us is to avoid psychological Click to continue reading...

The Serie A fixture list was released last week, and the first match day of the campaign offers up the chance for an early look at how the races for the scudetto and European places could take shape. Jose Mourinho may say he doesn't care about the fixture list, but it certainly has handed [...] Click to continue reading...

An interesting move by the Chicago Fire as they acquire the rights to Brian McBride from Toronto F.C. The Fire won't actually get to have McBride play for them until after the Olympic games are over, but that will serve as a good way to get him into game shape and ready for the stretch run and the playoffs. Click to continue reading...

It's abot a quarter hour to kickoff or so until Chivas USA-New England's SuperLiga match. Here's what the scene looks like as well as a couple more pictures inside.






It's a change of pace from what we're used to obviously. Usually, matches around here are at Home Depot Center but because of the X Games this game had to be played elsewhere, and this is elsewhere. Click to continue reading...

DC United 1 v Houston Dynamo 2
* Maybe it's just me, but I thought Onstad's save off Emilio's header was more routine than the announcers made it out to be.

* Nice run by Ricardo Clark to get to the near post, but Zach Wells has to fight more to get to that near post. To further that, where was the cover on the post.

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Oh dear. So we're looking at Peralta and Gallardo being ready for action by August 7th, at the earliest, and they'll probably need a couple of weeks to get back into something resembling game shape. Given Gallardo's injury history, I'd budget at least another week or two on top of that for him. I seem to remember the last time we trotted down this particular herniated road, it was Namoff Click to continue reading...

DC United 2 v Atlante 3
* Well so much for Atlante not taking this competition seriously. No shape in the back at all for DC United and Wells was going to be beaten 1 v 1. A minute later, it should have been 2-0 to Atlante but Wells was right there to catch it. At least United players tracked back this time.

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At long last the Ronaldinho transfer saga has ended. Manchester City's summer long pursuit of the former World Player of the Year has ended in failure as the overweight and out of shape Brazilian signs for AC Milan.

Where does this leave City? It leaves them with plenty of time to focus on their next target: Tal Ben-Haim. Click to continue reading...