Major stagnation period going on right now. It's the time when the previous season is old enough for you to stop thinking of it as ‘this season'; it's also the time when the calendar leers at you for looking ahead to next season. Stagnation time. It's all deserted on the field, the tumbleweed is wantonly tumbling on the Emirates turf as a hauntingly slow version of ‘The Wonder Of You' plays and Eboue diligently attends his summer knitting classes.

Arsenal are set to complete the signing of Lille forward Gervinho for £10.6million after negotiations passed a crucial stage.

Gervinho has been in London and having agreed personal terms with the Gunners with the Ivorian is ready to put pen to paper on a four-year contract.

What makes a great defender for your fantasy soccer team? He of course has to play in a winning team. He of course has to play often and whole games. If he scores a goal or gives an assist now and then that is a big plus. Of course we wouldnt mind if his price wouldnt be too much either.
So who are these denfenders.

Lionel Messi's list of accomplishments is breathtaking, and the scary thing is, he's far from done.

Between all of the goals (180 of them in seven seasons with Barcelona), assists, mazy runs, two World Player of the Year awards, three UEFA Champions League titles and a various array of other trophies, it's hard to believe that Messi is just 24.

By Chris Wright

At the risk of causing Manchester United-related overload seizures, here's a little Sky infographic comparing Nani's first 100 games for United against that of Cristiano Ronaldo and, rather surprisingly, the former comes out on top by quite a margin as far as assists are concerned.

Photo by Francesco Totti

Over the last few years, Major League Soccer has truly grown into a competitive league with talent, heart and spirit. Thanks to the likes of David Beckham and Thierry Henry, Europe has begun to take serious notice of the rising status of American soccerl.

Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez scored a goal apiece as a star-studded Argentina defeated modest Albania 4-0 on Monday evening at the Estadio Monumental in Buenos Aires. Messi also added two assists in a Man of the Match Performance. The match was the last warm-up for Argentina before it hosts Copa America 2011 in July.

Against Ipswich, Arshavin picked up two assists. Here is what he said of his own performance,

It wasn't a supermatch for me. But I'm satisfied with the result. I'm glad that I was useful to the squad.

I don't think he could have said it any better even with the help of the best PR agents in the world.

Well, I am not much of a transfer speculation/discussion guy but today's game and a highly unrealistic transfer rumour about a Nasri-Tevez swap got me thinking.

First, let me just mention why I don't see any sense in the swap deal with Tevez. The Argentinean is a world-class player but I don't see him fitting into the Arsenal style.

After signing Per Mertesacker and being linked endlessly to Mario Gotze, Arsenal are now tipped to land another German the 23-year old winger Kevin Grosskreutz.

Grosskreutz, who is Gotze's teammate at Borussia Dortmund, guided his current team to the Bundesliga title with eight goals and seven assists last season.

*Neither the Galaxy nor MLS have responded to a report Sunday that had leading scorer Edson Buddle rather embarrassingly snubbing a new contract with MLS for a struggling second-tier German outfit.

It's hard to blame Buddle, who turns 30 in May, for wanting to make some serious coin if reports of his likely paycheck are accurate.

UPDATE III: Alvaro Fernandez will not be called up to the Uruguay national team, after all. On Monday, Fernandez confirmed speculation that the injury he suffered in last week's Western Conference semifinal would make it impossible for him to play in his country's World Cup qualifier against Chile on Nov.

Gameweek 24 is soon upon us and this is the gameweek to succeed. Fantasy Premier League has 6 teams playing double gameweek, so make sure you have as many players as you can from these 6 teams. Which are of course: Blackpool, Man Utd, Wigan, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Fulham.
This weeks all the hottest tips come from these teams.

Since I posed the question in one of the posts yesterday, I was curious to determine how much of an impact Chicharito has had in terms of points won so far this season. Clearly, his impact is more than just goals and assists. But the intangibles are obviously more difficult to really measure. For the purpose of this exercise, I just went with a simplistic approach looking solely at the goals/assists stat and figuring out how many points he has won us because he scored/assisted.

It's been nine months on the making, but MLS fans are finally starting to see a healthy and fit Thierry Henry and that is bad news for the rest of Major League Soccer.

Henry was hampered by injuries last season and managed two goals in his first year in MLS. That is a total he matched against D.

Manchester United announced Thursday that "it has reached agreement with Aston Villa for the transfer of Ashley Young. The player passed a medical in Manchester and has agreed a five-year contract."

Young made 193 appearances and scored 39 times for Aston Villa after joining them from Watford in January 2007.

Nicklas Bendtner had a somewhat frustrating year in the Red n' White of The Gunners' strip, but also had some good moments in the 10-11 season. Things started gloomy for the Big Dane having been carrying a groin injury from the previous season and playing on painkillers NB went to the World Cup and the injury got worse from there he finally made his Arsenal injury comeback 3 months into the season coming on a late sub against Birmingham City @ Emirates.

Written by Total Arsenal

Seldom have I seen a football player like Abou Diaby. On the one hand he oozes class and potential, a beautiful athlete: a modern day gladiator. On the other hand he seems to struggle badly at times with being able to focus on the field, and achieving consistency in his performance.

Scoring Stats The true value of Ronaldo and Messi - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Any statistical analysis of a sporting event can go down one of two main routes. Firstly, they could be raw data, usually expressed as totals or percentages. In football, examples include the number of total corners a team concedes (or forces), the number of minutes a player is on the park for over the course of a season or even how many points a team accumulates.

Heading into the 2011 season, a Wisconsin native is the country's top-ranked senior men's college soccer player.

Creighton forward Ethan Finlay (Marshfield) earned that honor from Joe Mauceri, whose "Joe's Big Board" feature made its debut on TopDrawerSoccer.

...And thus, that shall be the first and only time you will see me mention Oxtail-Chamberpot by his full and proper name.

In all seriousness, today both Arsenal and Southampton announced the signing of the young forward to Arsenal, where he will immediately come into the first-team and start training with them.

Two Minnesota U-14 players have just returned from a very successful trip south of the boarder.

Minnesota boys make Top Drawer Soccer's list of Top Players to Watch.

Luke Haakenson to travel to West Ham in London to train with academy.

As Barcelona head into this weekends game against Atletico Madrid looking for a record 16th successive Liga victory, the question has be asked: Can anyone stop Barcelona this season?

It ha been an amazing season so far at the Camp Nou as Barca seem to set records on a weekly basis.

So far this season in La Liga, Barcelona have picked up 52 points from a possible 57 after 19 games, which beats their own record from 2008-09.

Click here to watch Arsenal v Barcelona Live!

As we build up to Wednesday's massive Arsenal v Barcelona match, here's a look at the some of the head 2 head stats between Barcelona and Arsenal players.

Robin van Persie v Lionel Messi

In Robin Van Persie, Arsenal have a striker in the form of his career, with the Dutchman netting a fantastic 10 goals in the league in 2011 so far.

Liverpool has been alerted to the availability of Sevilla winger Diego Perotti after the Spanish side agreed to sign German international Piotr Trochowski in the summer.
According to reports in tribalfootball.com, Sevilla are prepared to listen to offers for the Argentinean winger who has been heavily linked with a move to the Premier League.

Soccer stats tend to fall into two categories. There are the stats that are easy for the casual fan-slash-statistician to observe and tally, but which are almost hopelessly uninformative. That would include goals, assists, minutes played, and so on. Then there are the stats that provide significantly more insight but due to the continuous nature of the game take dedicated resources to measure.

With a tie against reigning MLS Champion Colorado, D.C. United salvaged 1pt. and currently sit 6th in the Eastern Conference only 1pt. behind three other teams - New England, Columbus, and Houston.
Converting on his penalty attempt, Chris Pontius scored his 3rd goal of the 2011 MLS season.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

Life after the disappointment of the 2011 CONCACAF championship has begun for the United States Under-20 national team.

Conor Doyle, Josh Gatt and Luis Gil each scored as the U.S. U-20s tied host France, 3-3, in a friendly on Tuesday.

Doyle, who had two goals and two assists in the regional tournament, continued his run of form internationally.

Just Football: Serie A 2010-11 Team of the Season is a post from: Just Football

With the 2010/11 Serie A season now complete and Internazionale Coppa Italia winners, time for the obligatory team of the season. Naturally, champions Milan are the most represented team in the main XI, with three players.

Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish is looking to secure the signature of Wigan winger Charles N'Zogbia when the summer transfer window opens for business according to reports in The Sun.
N'Zogbia has been impressive this season for the Latics who avoided relegation from the Premiership on the final day of the campaign.

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Union

Power rankings roundup! At MLSsoccer.com, the Union moves into second place and do the same at ESPN, SBI, Goal.com.

Sheanon Williams is named to Goal.com's Best XI for Week 13. Danny Califf and Keon Daniel get honorable mentions.

Danny Mwanga says of playing in Vancouver, "The opening minutes on the road, in a tough place to play, are so important.

Liverpool defender Martin Kelly believes new signing Jordan Henderson has all the attributes to become a great at Anfield.
Henderson, on international duty with the England Under-21s in Denmark, signed for Liverpool from Sunderland for a reported £16 million last week.
And Kelly, who established himself in the Reds first team last season, believes the young midfielder has the ability to make an even bigger name for himself.

Photo by Tracy Allen/ISIphotos.com

With all of the Chicago Fire's recent forward acquisitions, there couldn't be room for everybody in Frank Klopas' stable of strikers, and Gaston Puerari is the odd man out.

The Fire sold Puerari, a Uruguayan forward acquired in the offseason, to Mexican club Atlas on Wednesday for an undisclosed transfer fee.

The starting right center back for the Rapids All-Time Team is Peter Vermes. Alas I could not find a picture of him in a Rapids kit, so I went with the U.S. kit instead.
How Acquired: Traded Kerry Zavagnin to the NY/NJ Metrostars for him.
Years In Colorado: 1997 through 1999
How Departed: Traded to KC along with Matt McKeon for Scott Vermillion and an allocation.

The Independence were able to move into second place in the six team WPS with a 6-0 thrashing of the team I will only refer to as Florida. The margin of victory is the highest ever in the 2.5 year old league and only the second time ever a team has scored six goals in a game (the now defunct LA team did it last season).

Tony McManus - Photo courtesy of Dropping Timber.com

Tony McManus has told IMS that he is retiring from professional soccer. In an interview where he spoke about an incident last month were he was abruptly terminated from his contract by FC Tampa Bay, the 8-year veteran revealed the news.

Manchester United winger Antonio Valencia does not the fear the arrival of Ashley Young, who will certainly provide him with competition for his place in the team.

The £16m winger, who joined us from Aston Villa, is only beaten by Cesc Fabregas on assists since 2007-2008, which puts the pressure on Valencia to keep his place.

By JOHN BOSCHINI

Worst meets first this weekend in the NASL as we approach the halfway point of the season.

The Atlanta Silverbacks have earned five points from 12 games, conceding 22 goals along the way. Conversely, the Carolina Railhawks have opened up an 11-point lead atop the NASL table and have scored 26 goals, nine more than the Puerto Rico Islanders.

The starting left center back for the Rapids All-Time Team is Ritchie Kotschau.
How Acquired: Traded Adin Brown, Scott Vermillion, and our 2002 first round pick to Tampa Bay for Carlos Valderrama, Scott Garlick, and Richie Kotschau.
Years In Colorado: Mid 2001 through 2005
How Departed: Traded to Columbus for Cornell Glen.

By Chris Wright

Largely due to the fact that he's probably tatered, Lionel Messi's performances at the Copa America have been a little off-colour so far, with pint-sized mopey tantrums here and free-kicks hoofed into the ionosphere there.

However, Messi finally pulled his finger out and got his act together in time for Argentina's comfortable 3-0 win over Costa Rica (who, in fairness, fielded a 'developmental' U23 side) last night playing a part in almost every wave of attack and providing two assists as Sergio Aguero (2) and Angel Di Maria netted for the Albiceleste.