Being Arsene's number one apologist there is a question that has been floating around out there that has been bothering me for a while: why did Wenger play a weakened side against Shakhtar and Braga away? His critics accuse him of arrogance and obstinacy; the fall out of these decisions being that we came runners up and now, unnecessarily, have to face Barcelona.

Mmmm - look at all these big, juicy grapes! There must be enough for years! I wonder how they taste?
Before we start tossing around suggestions - and there have been some good ones - we need to get on the same page as to what actually happened.
There has been a lot of talk that the technical superiority of the England and the US bids hampered their campaigns.

J Hutcherson wrote a good article about Colorado Rapids' coach Gary Smith's comments recently, where Smith compared Major League Soccer to the English Coca-Cola Championship.

Smith told the League's official site that his MLS Cup champions would beat a team like Coventry "seven times out of 10," taking it that next step by criticizing the physical style of play that dominates the Championship.

It was all perfectly set up for failure. The media hype, the misguided optimism of fans, the self assured arrogance of the bid team. On Wednesday afternoon, David Beckham had told reporters, "It's our time." On whose watch, Becks? Certainly not Blatter's. Now England are staring down the barrel of humiliation, having suffered the ignominy of a first round defeat to such giants of world football and politics as Spain, Russia, and, er, Belgium.

There was something inevitable about Chris Hughton's sacking today, almost if after the last few weeks, it was a case of when rather than why. I was extremely critical of Mike Ashley's reign in the season that Newcastle United were relegated and yet here we are again, two years on and the man simply can't leave things alone.

The Blatherer has spoken, and he's hurt. Deeply hurt.

Accusations that FIFA is corrupt are, he says, unfounded, despite their foundation. And the vitriol being spit from England is a shame for the 'motherland of fairplay ideas', whatever that means.

So as this high school drama production continues, he thinks the real problem is that England, at least some of those involved, are 'bad losers'.

FIFA's erstwhile despot president Sepp Blatter has branded the English as 'bad losers' in the wake of the recent World Cup auction which saw Russia and Qatar purchase the rights to host the 2018 and 2022 tournaments respectively.

Upon crashing out of the 'ballot' in the first round with a paltry total of two votes (one from themselves, and one from the main butt of BBC Panorama's 'potentially devastating' exposé into the institutionalised corruption within football's governing body Cameroonian ExCo member Issa Hayatou), the England 2018 team reacted with a flurry of frothing self-entitlement and a brief swathe of measly protests, which were all about as half-cocked as the bid attempt itself.

By Eric Beard, writing from Boston

The month-long celebration of the beautiful game clearly has a massive impact on football as a whole, but could the game still thrive without the world's biggest competition in sport every four years? Though not ideal, the hypocritical nature of FIFA's governing body that is in charge of such events forces this question.

Is Sepp Blatter the worst president of any sports organization in the world? I think so.

Blatter, the president of FIFA, has faced a world-wind of challenges in the last year from horrific officiating during last summer's World Cup to recent reports revealing that several of his "respected" FIFA panelist were accepting money under the table to persuade their vote.

Ahead of Manchester United's game against Arsenal, Patrice Evra claimed our opponents were in crisis, after going over half a decade without any silverware. Considering United haven't gone longer than one season without a trophy since Sir Alex Won his first in 1990, 20 years ago, it's hard to argue with what Evra is saying.

By Chris Wright

Manchester United's unofficial PR rep Patrice Evra feels that his call to write Arsenal off as a 'training centre' before the two sides met on Monday has been completely vindicated by the Gunners' sallow performance thereafter.

When you have players who are playing well, and who make up the core nucleus of a team, the last thing you would do is sell them, right? But guess what? This is Newcastle United and apparently anything and everything out of the ordinary is capable of happening.

According to this article on Sky, the St James's Park heirarchy (aka Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias), are prepared to let Mr.

I've thought this for a long time but I have to say that it was finally confirmed to me about 22:34 last night; Chelsea fans irritate me more than any other.
I'm not knocking all Chelsea supporters. I'm sure that there are some nice ones out there. This fella on the Chelsea Daft blog seems like a reasonable bloke.