Arsenal's defence at full stretch

Three points in the bag. Move up to 11th in the league (still early days to consider any significance of the table). No injuries suffered during the game. No red card accrued during the 90 minutes. Andrey Arshavin opened his accounts for the season and another clean sheet kept by Wojciech Szczesny (not that it was his effort alone, those in front of him helped of course).

After a summer of transfer rumors about where will Carlos Tevez be playing this season, nobody was willing to pay City's price for their former captain, and it appeared that Tevez was happy to be returning to Manchester.

But in Munich tonight, the Carlos Tevez's relationship with Manchester City hit a low point as Tevez refused to go into the game as a second half substitute.

Chelsea has signed Portugal midfielder Raul Meireles from Liverpool in a deal rumoured to be worth around £12million.
Blues manager Andre Villas-Boas signed the 28-year-old minutes before the summer transfer window closed on Wednesday evening.
It was announced Meireles had handed in a transfer request at Liverpool just 30 minutes before the deadline closed, with Chelsea announcing their new signing shortly after.

Granted, these early matches under the Klinsmann regime are all about assessing players and introducing the new boss's style, so it's not yet time to go overboard with complaints about players who don't belong, defensive disorganization, and lack of chances created. Sadly, my suspicion is that we're going to have plenty of chances to file those complaints down the road.

Tottenham's poor start to the season is almost becoming a distant memory and yesterday's emphatic win over Liverpool underlined the potential that this side has. Suddenly, two new arrivals have transformed the team and with most of the deadwood out of the club, the win could herald some very promising times.

Game notes later - atmosphere at BMO first...The weather helped to set the scene last night at BMO Field, it was a perfect Toronto in September evening. The wind never picked up off of the lake, the sky was clear and the temperature was somewhere between balmy and cool. As the sun was setting, I had made sure to pack a hoodie and a fleece vest, yet they were never needed.

Sigh. Another game, another lack of attack until its too late, another failure to win. The Rapids spent a good 60 minutes doing essentially nothing in the offensive third, and by then they were down 1-0. They showed some life in the last 30 minutes and were somewhat unlucky not to find two goals, but at the same time they were lucky to get one.

After a summer of transfer rumors about where will Carlos Tevez be playing this season, nobody was willing to pay City's price for their former captain, and it appeared that Tevez was happy to be returning to Manchester.

But in Munich tonight, the Carlos Tevez's relationship with Manchester City hit a low point as Tevez refused to go into the game as a second half substitute.

The post Bayern Munich interview with Manchester City coach Roberto Mancini bears bad fruit as the Italian describes the bench scene at Allianz Arena with Carlos Tevez's refusal to play for the Blues. The visitors are already down by two goal when Mancini motioned for the Argentine forward to sub on for the final 30 minutes.

With fourth spot in the Premiership all but wrapped up it's time for everyone to swing around and face this direction once again, just hither. I appreciate it can be jolly dashed mind-boggling these days trying to separate one competition from the next, but my spies tell me that tonight it's Europa.

It's been nearly five months since Javier Morales suffered the gruesome ankle injury that threatened to end his season, but the Real Salt Lake midfielder completed his comeback with a substitute appearance on Wednesday night.

Overshadowed by CONCACAF Champions League action, Morales made his first appearance since May 7 by coming off the bench and playing the final 30 minutes in Real Salt Lake's 3-0 defeat to Chicago.