Amr Zaki is the breakaway leader in the early stages of the FF season for Top Striker. And at only £6.2m he represents good value indeed; he is playing every minute, has 3 goals and 1 assist to his name, and perhaps more importantly is proving to be a bonus point magnet. He has earned a bonus point every week for the first three weeks, and enviable achievement that is unmatched by any other player.

Condolences to those of you, who, like me, just gave up two hours of a lovely summer afternoon to watch FC Dallas massacre the Galaxy 4-0.

Two goals inside 90 seconds just after 15 minutes sealed the result, but it could have been 6-0 (or more). The Galaxy ended the game with just two shots on goal (Dallas had 14).

This week Villa players look like they might be a Good Thing. They are in fine form after thumping Man City, and this week they have a trip to Stoke - a promising fixture indeed. So who are the better options of Villa offensive players?
Agbonlahor got off to a flyer, scoring a second half hat-trick in the space of 7 minutes.

This week Andrea Canales got the US faithful abuzz with a nice article on a potential Landon Donovan return to Europe. Your faithful vagabond has been sniffing about this week checking on the possibility that Landon Donovan has attracted interest from Bundesliga power Bayern Munich. So far the results indicate that people have taken Andrea's speculation and twisted it into something it is not; a rumor.

Reina
Arbeloa Skrtel Carragher Aurelio
Kuyt Alonso Gerrard Benayoun
Torres Keane
Goals:
Kuyt 118'
These games are not doing my heart any good. Four games into the season, and the earliest goal Liverpool's scored has come in the 83rd minute. And Kuyt striking the winner after suffering a ton of stick makes it even sweeter.

Just got home from a day out with the fam so didn't have a chance to do the running blog. It's halftime in Frisco and the Galaxy's defense is up to its old tricks as FC Dallas leads 3-0.
I'll update periodically through the second half. Go ahead and post your thoughts on the match here.
Eduardo Dominguez fit right into the Galaxy's backline as he turned a ball over that led to the second goal.

Nicolas Anelka has something of a bad rep for a fantasy football striker. I've never been keen on having him in my squad - perhaps I bought into all those "sulking" rumours. Or the hype that he was going to be a hat-trick-per-game striker, and then felt let down when he wasn't. Or maybe its just cos he's French.

Robbie Keane has completed his move from Tottenham to Liverpool, much to the dismay of Spurs fans. His move now pushes Darren Bent back into contention as a starter alongside Berbatov, and at £7.5 million he looks promising for another large season.
Whilst pre-season games are not always a true indicator of who will make the starting line-ups come August 16th, Darren Bent has had a successful run so far and is in the kind of form that will make the coach pay attention.

We had an idea this would happen, but we're sad nevertheless.
The Nigeria women's football team, the Super Falcons, were beaten 3-1 by Brazil on Tuesday at the Workers' Stadium in Beijing in their final group game at the Olympics.

The result left the Nigerian women bottom of the group with three defeats from three matches, and eliminated from the tournament.

Last season Torres scored 24 goals, joint-top for Forwards (shared with Adebayor). This season he is the bookie's universal favorite to be the leagues Golden Boot, followed by Ronaldo, Adebayor and Drogba.
As far as price goes, these are the lads you will be paying top quid for to have in your team.

Dean Ashton had a stunning season opener for West Ham against Wigan, scoring twice and racking up 10 points. And at £6.5 million, many people will be looking to transfer him into their squad as a cheap but highly effective points scorer; a completely understandable reaction to his point scoring heroics.

Guillermo Barros Schelotto won't be in the MLS All-Star game later this week and last Thursday he provided a strong case for being the worst snub in the league. The Argentine star dazzled the crowd at Crew Stadium, helping Columbus fight back from 2-0 down to take a 3-2 lead against the Wizards.

Few teams in Europe can boast a spine as strong as Liverpool's: Pepe Reina and Jamie Carragher defying attackers, Javier Mascherano breaking up opponents' moves in midfield, Steven Gerrard surging forward to liaise with Fernando Torres.
Liverpool will continue to stir respect, if not yet fear in the hearts of Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal.

As good as Manchester United were last year, and they were very good, their off the field shenanigans, mostly those involving Portuguese speaking attackers and their hooker-a-thons, left something to be desired. Not exactly getting off to a shining start in the department this year either because Anderson had a drug dealing buddy of his [.

Previously on "What I Want For Christmas (In July)" . . . So what's all this Christmas nonsense about anyway, and does anybody remember December? . . . Let's figure out what, if anything, needs to be fixed at the back . . . So now I'm back from my holiday journeys and safely ensconced in Fullback HQ, and the time approaches when we have to deal with the business end of the United roster--namely

Hmm, Hillcrest predicts a 3-1 MLS win with goals from Gomez, Cooper, Beckham and Faubert. We get a 3 (nice)-2 MLS win (nice) with goals from Gomez (nice), Blanco and De Rosario for the All-Stars. Ashton scored twice for West Ham. Three correct predictions on the match? Not bad. Correctly predicting the most important aspect (the winner), even better.

(I've been gone awhile. I may talk about it later. For now, we stick to the football.)

In week 4, this would have seemed a pretty solid result. Now, though - eeugh. That was some ugly sheet, mang.

Not ugly from a technique standpoint, really. The passing in MLS can surprise me sometimes now, and the quality of the balls Conde and Segares (from one end) and Conrad (from the other) were serving up made it look like these teams were actually, honestly playing long-ball, and not just hoofing the damned thing every chance they got.

Right. So Frederic Piquionne is a Lyon player. He was nabbed for €4.5m on a four year contract from Monaco. Everyone is excited. Really.

*tumbleweeds*

Or maybe not. Umm...

A new player? What?

  When Boro's defenders aren't busy keeping Spurs' expensively-assembled forward line at bay, they like to kick back with a little baking. On the pitch, Pogatetz is a fierce tackler and Wheater uses his massive frame to ward off attackers.  Off the pitch, Wheater mixes the icing and Pogatetz applies it with a flat knife.

It's official. After months of searching for a new club, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink one of my favorite players of all-time has announced his retirement from football.

Hasselbaink's most recent spell, with Cardiff City, ended in a messy divorce after the impetuous striker was not offered a contract extension following last season.

HAMBURG boss Martin Jol has admitted he tried to sign Liverpool forward Dirk Kuyt before the transfer window closed.
And speculation in Germany suggests he may try again in January.
The former Tottenham coach was linked with failed bids for Kuyt and Ajax striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar this summer, and admitted: "I would gladly have signed Kuyt and Huntelaar.

News today is that Cristiano Ronaldo has won the 2008 Ballon d'Or, awarded after 96 football journalists voted from a shortlist of 30 players. Except it's not really news is it? Because we all knew he'd won it long before the votes were in. Just like in 2007, when we all knew Kaka would be [...]

The United States crushed Barbados but not much can be taken from the match. Barbados missing four of their five best players got rolled by a fired up US squad 8-0. While the scoreline was impressive, many concerns still persist for the U.S. like keeping proper spacing between attackers on the pitch and players knowing [.

It can always be difficult in the Preseason to pick players to fill your team, especially from the newly promoted clubs. Many of them will be transferring in new players who have experience playing Premier League football, and this can mean players who played large amounts of gametime in the previous season find themselves out in the cold.

Peter Crouch is expected to transfer from Liverpool to Portsmouth before the 2008 / 2009 season kicks off. This will reunite him with his England striker partner, Jermaine Defoe. Sky Sports' Opta stats look at the numbers that the partnership has achieved.
The article is fairly bouyant about their work together, and provides this data:
Crouch and Defoe for England
Matches Played Together: 7
Goals Scored as Partnership: 10
Goals Scored by Crouch: 7
Goals Scored by Defoe: 3
Portsmouth's opening three fixtures are not easy: Chelsea away first up, Man Utd at home in week 2, then Everton away in the third week.

Calling all Fantasy Leaguers!
If you're the type of person that thinks nothing of spending millions and millions of Pounds every summer on a group of assorted football players of varying quality in the hope they'll bring you fame and glory, we need you for our 2008/09 Fantasy League competition!

If you're serious about getting back into the hearts of the fans, tomorrow is an excellent time to start. Not only is it a Champions League qualifier, always a potential banana skin, but we're without a midfield and could definitely use some of your goals.

For those of you who don't read links, basically it says that most of our starters/potential starters are injured.

West Ham United's website is reporting that Ashton's scan on his injured leg has reported no problems and come back all clear. They state he will "continue to be monitored but is hopeful of being back in action this coming weekend". Expect to see him playing between 70-80 minutes.
This is good news for West Ham and also for the 19,000 fantasy managers who had transferred him into their squad already.

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Kilburn Times/Noam Friedlander - Dexter relishing Villa challenge
Having secured a rare passage through to the third round of the Carling Cup last week, QPR have been given the chance to test their mettle against Premier League outfit Aston Villa later this month.
The Hoops were drawn against Martin O'Neill's side in Saturday's draw and, according to striker Dexter Blackstock, they might even surprise their top flight opponents at Villa Park on Wednesday September 24.

The arrow indicates the location of the ball. Yellow - Watford (defenders); blue/white - Reading (attackers).