A late goal by Danny Welbeck earned England a 1-1 draw on the first day of Group B action in Herning.

Spain dominated possession throughout the game and took the lead through Ander Herrera in the 14th minute. It looked like Spain were going to pick up all three points, but Welbeck denied them with his equaliser in the 88 minute.

I have to admit I have been surprised with the press and media's take on Chelsea this season. Ok we do hear now and again people speaking of Chelsea being strong and have experience but the general consensus of opinion is that we will have a fight to finish third this season.
Surprising to me I have to say but it's nice to hear that Patrice Evra has revealed that despite Man City looking to strengthen their side for this season, he and his United team mates still fear Chelsea and believe WE ARE their main challengers this season for the title.

Written by Gooner in Exile

Easter weekend brought Gooners to Lancashire in their droves. We took the whole end of the ground, upper and lower, the normal allocation is 3,000 but that is, I believe, half lower tier and all the upper. I would estimate the travelling ranks were closer to 5,000 on Sunday.

Chelsea and Manchester United will engage in an auction for the services of Luka Modric. Not ITK, just obvious, and something I've mentioned a couple of times since the season finished. He's one of the top midfielders in Europe and certainly the best outside the top four, with the possible exception of Gerrard who is welded to his club.

FIFA Vice-President Jack Warner, whom allegations of corruption were made, has resigned from his post at football's world governing body. Any chance that this move could be seen as a positive development within the upper echelons of the game have been completely overridden by the words expressed by FIFA itself in the aftermath of his resignation.

Sent this to The Times today
Sir,
Unfortunately I will no longer be buying The Times due to your parent company's association with the News of the World and its actions by standing by Rebekah Brooks. I know this scandal is nothing to do with The Times and it is with a heavy heart I end my longstanding loyalty to your fine newspaper however I have no other way of protesting and voicing my utter disgust at this vile episode and the arrogance your parent company has displayed.

Of all the moments in the surreal, simultaneously compelling and slightly sickening Manchester City vs. Manchester United game today, there is one that will probably stay rooted in our imaginations for at least a little while: Balotelli's cheeky question: "Why Always Me?" after his first goal. Like the most conversation-worthy and striking moments in football, this one is fascinating because it seems at once funny and irritating, appropriate and trangressive.

Whoever thought Jose Mourinho could be shocked by arrogance? It seems that in Real Madrid general manager Jorge Valdano he has met his match as a potentially detrimental feud threatens to derail Real Madrid's pursuit of Barcelona.

When Mourinho took over at Real, he made it clear that he wanted greater control over the management of the team than the long list of ‘coaches' who had bowed to the whims of the board for more than a decade.

Around the time of the Fulham game, Wenger gave a statement in his press conference that caught me by surprise and forced me to think.

By now you probably have seen this line,

But it will be difficult to find a coach who teaches me how to manage a football team.

Some fans have read arrogance and obstinacy in that statement but I disagree.

Written by Harry

In the midst of one of the biggest summers that I can remember since 97, many questions need answering, Where did it all go wrong? Whose fault is it? Is Wenger the right Man for the job? Which players actually play for the shirt? What are our weaknesses, the list is endless.

It may be hard to believe the United States Men's National Team is suffering from overconfidence in the wake of a humbling 4-0 home defeat to Spain, but after the last two performances against Panama and Canada, a curious case of arrogance appears to be troubling the U.S. as of late.

Clint Dempsey's play in the attack has been phenomenal for the U.

This Is Our Striker?

1. Watched the game at El Torito (hey it was taco Tuesday). An American fan, who was surely several tequila shots deep, comes up to us around the 80th minute and says:
"This is embarrasing. I can get 11 of us in here to play better.

As Martin Kelner so eloquently put it in the Guardian:

Britain's great gift to the world is undoubtedly sarcasm – that, and Marmite – so congratulations to Chelsea's new coach, André Villas-Boas on picking up the lingua franca so quickly ...

Below is Villas-Boas' post-Norwich interview.

All characters and events in this piece even those based on real people – are entirely fictional. Obviously.

In the away team dressing room, Manchester United are toasting another victory.

I'm going to take a small break from writing about Arsenal today to vent on a subject that has infuriated me since listening to the European Championship draw on Friday evening, and that is the supreme arrogance of English pundits with regard to the national team. We all know that England are forever overhyped before major tournaments, but it is the dismissive contempt for many of the other countries (those not called Spain, Germany or Italy) that winds me up the most.

The tories have outdone themselves this time. Somehow they think they've vetoed a major treaty that's actually gone ahead anyway leaving us basically out in the cold.
Our neighbours have gone ahead and done everything without us so all Cameron has achieved is to drive a wedge between us and Europe for no other reason than to appease his own party's xenophobic Tea-Party element.

With Rivals Barcelona out in Japan taking part in the FIFA World Club Cup, Real Madrid took the opportunity last night to extend their lead a top the La Liga standings with an emphatic 6-2 win over Sevilla.

Cristiano Ronaldo scored a hat-trick to take his tally for the season to 20 goals with Messi 3 goals behind him.

KING'S LYNN TOWN 10-1 RAUNDS TOWNSaturday 1st January 2011United Counties League Premier DivisionThe Walks
Despite being a bank holiday weekend for a lot of people in this country, for me though it is a normal working weekend as like always I finished work on Friday morning and return on Sunday night.

A much better showing than the previous 2 outings, but nowhere near the dominating performance that we expect from our our boys especially at home.

Some impressions:

1. Nani adds such a cutting edge to our attack. He also brings an arrogance onto the field that may border on petulance at times, but gives us more confidence going forward.

Update: Between writing and posting this the English FA seem to have announced that a 2013 home international tournament would be a one off to celebrate their 150th anniversary. Ah, well. Still think I'm right.
And so the home internationals might be on the verge of a return thanks to the money of Vauxhall.

So it's a two-nation race to host the 2015 Women's World Cup between Canada and Zimbabwe. And, frankly, there is no choice here. It has to be Zimbabwe.
What did Sepp Blatter say when Russia and Qatar won?
Quote: Originally Posted by Sepp Blatter We go to new lands.

David Dickson entertains an ever-growing Twitter audience @DKDickson and blogs at DaveyTalksBalls. It's also worth mentioning that, if you're an NFL fan, Dave can be also be found on Twitter @UKNFL .. Anyway, here's a goal that'll divide opinion ...
. I've been watching Chelsea since about 1990.

Welcome to the eleventh issue of The Red Report, the round table discussion of all things Manchester United by your favourite United blogs: The Busby Way, Stretford-End, Bangalore To Old Trafford, ManUtd24, United Youth, and Red Force Rising.

Unlike English football, we've had a winter break.

Some things you can rely on. Like taxes, deaths, the arrogance of Malaysian taxi drivers, the ST whining.
After Malaysia won the plaudits for winning the AFF Cup, hot on the heels of the SEA Games, it seemed for a while the stuffed shirts at the Football Association had pushed off the back pages as the nation could luxuriate in success on the field.

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few days, or indeed watching Sky Sports News, where they valiantly pretended the story wasn't going on around them, you may have heard about the spot of bother Richard Keys and Andy Gray got themselves into, going all 1950s alpha male by slagging off the 'state of football today' for daring to employ a female lineswoman (who, incidentally, was excellent), while 'hilariously' joking about how she would need to be taught the offside rule, being, you know, a woman, and therefore incapable of understanding some complexities.

Hamish fan of Brisbane Roar wrote a comment to my earlier post re:anti football media conspiring to talk football down again and again and again.
It deserved it's own post so twitter and facebook fans would get to see it!
From Hamish:
More good thought Eamonn. I can feel your frustration.

Hell hath no fury like Wenger. Take it away, boss:

"Arsenal football club has been punished. When you have a football game of that stature, you cannot come out with decisions like that and show a lot of arrogance on top of that. We can all understand that we can make wrong decisions but, after that, it becomes dictatorship.

It appears that Arsene Wenger is still furious about the refereeing in Barcelona if his quotes in the Guardian are anything to go by.

Here are some of his comments:

"Arsenal football club has been punished. When you have a football game of that stature, you cannot come out with decisions like that and show a lot of arrogance on top of that.

Arsene is not going to stand back and take punishment for merely complaining about a diabolical refereeing decision. He has spoken out in vigorous defence of his actions and he has some very strong, but fair, words for the muppets at UEFA:"When you have a football game of that stature, you cannot come out with decisions like that and show a lot of arrogance on top of that.

Most bizarre dreams last night. Samir Nasri was living with the lesbian couple who live across the road from me and he invented a machine which could fire footballs at cars and knock the driver out of them as they were driving along.

I asked him what purpose this machine served. "It's for the dark future he said.

There is a sense of foreboding in the air in England, ahead of Saturday's European Championship qualifying match against Wales in Cardiff. It's not a sense of fear the players, at the very least, carry too much arrogance for fear to be a major factor where the English national football team is concerned but there is a sense, almost intangible, that something still isn't right in the England squad.

At least it was a piece of absolute quality that decided matters in the Spanish capital last night. Admittedly Pepe, the man shadowing Messi's movement all night was no longer on the pitch (we'll come back to that), but it was an outrageously good goal and one that that few, if any, are capable of.

Pep: Decir la verdad al puto jefe!

Just when you thought El Clásico couldn't get any more heated, Pep Guardiola took the rivalry to 11 in his press conference yesterday in Madrid. But the real battle of Mourinho contra Guardiola will take place on the pitch later today, with the 1st leg of the Champions League semifinal.

So Arsenal let Barcelona use Colney to train ahead of the Champions League final. A sign of class and generosity of the club. Then, two of their horrible, arrogant little players decide to try and be funny:

Would you see an Arsenal player do this? No. Barcelona think they exist in a world of their own where nobody can touch them, that they can do as they please and their footballing excellence can excuse them of their misdemeanors.

By Azeem Banatwalla

"I am not a man of many words, but I can honestly say that playing football is all I have ever wanted to do" - departing words from one of football's understated legends. Another member of United's class of ‘92 announced his retirement today, lowering the curtain on an illustrious career with tons of trophies, but sparing individual honors.

A late strike by Danny Welbeck earned England U21s a fortunate 1-1 draw with favourites Spain in their opening European U21 Championship group match at the Herning Stadion, Denmark.

Welbeck seized on a neat pass before placing the ball past Spanish goalkeeper David De Gea in the 87th minute to seal a 1-1 draw.

In an attempt to generate some sort of regular feature on the blog (whatever happened to those Alliterative XIs anyway? More of them soon I hope...), I've decided to start a seven of the best feature. It will link to some of the best stuff I've read and seen online during the week.

So, starting out at in no particular order we have a wonderful piece from VivaRovers detailing the fan managerial speak (1) that is vital to understand should you feel brave enough to listen to the angry Alan Green or confused Spoony (both of which I believe have taken the radio show as far as they can) on a Saturday evening.

So many of us blogger types have been obsessing over transfers for months now. It's only natural really. Concrete news is at a minimum for the most part, and rumors are very much a welcome diversion from the regular old norm.

Some, including us here at the Chelsea Offside, have even gone as far as to ask readers who would be their dream signings this summer.

In covering football tournaments on 200%, I have found it easy to see the good in them. Too easy for some tastes, I admit. But, honestly, the 2011 Women's World Cup was a belter, wasn't it? I was glad to be wrong about the winners. BBC analyst Lucy Ward's suggestion during the final that current coach Pia Sundhage had rid the USA squad of much of its former arrogance was an eyebrow-raiser, although it was more possible to feel sorry for Abby Wambach after her largely-inspirational 2011 displays than it had been in 2007.

By Chris Wright

The latest chapter in the continuing story of Bungaling Balo sees our compelling protagonist getting himself hauled off after just half-an-hour of Man City's pre-season friendly against LA Galaxy when he intentionally spurned a chance/screwed up a Virgo trickshot turning his back and backheeling the ball straight out for a goal-kick.