Wycombe's Jon-Paul Pittman, who was born in the United States, shocked Premier League champions Chelsea with a second half hat-trick in a span of four minutes. Pittman, a former Aston Villa youth player, only joined the League 2 minnows in February last year and his performance against the Blues on Thursday night underlines his ability in front of the goal.

Fox Broadcasting will launch a new site starting March 1st called Fox Soccer Plus.

Announced on the Fox Soccer website, Fox Soccer Plus (FSP) is intended to complement Fox Soccer Channel (FSC) and complete the "ultimate soccer fan experience." The channel will be broadcast in HD.

Well, not in so many words, but the Spuds manager talked about the problems he has been facing on the club's tour of America and we can pretty much see it's not a good idea.

Speaking about the training sessions he said,

I would be a liar if I said it was the perfect way to prepare for the new season, because it is not.

ESPN has reached an agreement with Fox Sports International for multimedia rights to select England's Barclays Premier League (BPL) matches in the United States for the next three seasons, 2010-11 through 2012-13. The three-year sublicense includes up to 74 live matches each season on ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.

Wenger looks for new blood apparently and Bolton boss admits mistake.

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Fulham manager Roy Hodgson maintains there has been no contact from Arsenal over promising defender Chris Smalling and would expect a phone call from Arsene Wenger if there was any interest.

Setanta Sports confirmed today that its US and Caribbean sports channel will cease broadcasting on February 28, 2010 and that much of its TV programming rights, including premium soccer games and rugby events, will be transferred to Fox Soccer Channel, according to a press release on the Setanta US website.

Premier League team news - Barclays Premier League - ESPN SoccernetOutCarlos Cuellar and James Collins - the problem is that there isn't any definitive on Davies' health so the Collins replacement could either be Davies or the youngster Ciaran Clark. Regardless, Luke Young is probably too expensive to choose as a deputy for Cuellar on the right;Thomas Hitzlsperger - he picked up a thigh injury

ESPN reached an agreement with Fox Sports International for multimedia rights to select England's Barclays Premier League (BPL) matches in the United States for the next three seasons, 2010-11 through 2012-13 earlier this month. The three-year sublicense includes up to 74 live matches each season on ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, ESPN3.

I am not sure if I should be confident about this game or be worried. Till I read the reports today I was quite sure we will get through to the next round without any problems.

Porto's away record in general and their history with English teams is in our favor. The performance I saw at the Estadio Do Dragao left me convinced the game at the Emirates will be a cakewalk.

According to sources, ESPN and Fox Sports International are currently in negotiations for FSI to sublicense the Barclays Premier League TV rights in the U.S. through 2013 to ESPN.

However, a deal has not yet been signed. And soccer fans in the United States will have to wait until an agreement is reached before they know which games will be televised on which TV networks.

Man Utd recently published a summary of their 2009 financial statements. I thought it will be interesting to look at how the clubs compare financially. Since their summary is only a two page document it's not possible to do a detailed analysis but we can definitely compare the incomes of the two clubs.

This gameweek it is doubletime for Manchester City, Stoke, Bolton and Wigan in Barclays Premier League. And out of those four it's Manchester City who has the easiest feast. Bolton at home and Stoke away. Emmanuel Adebayor is back from the ill-fated trip to African Cup and has scored in last 2 matches.

Now that DISH Network was the first satellite or cable provider to broadcast Fox Soccer Channel in HD on February 10, 2010, the race is on for other TV providers to get the channel as part of its programming.

For those of you who have DISH Network and you're able to get FSCHD, use this thread to tell us what the quality of the HD picture is, to post questions and to discuss the techie topics you want to discuss.

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we will need a positive contribution from Denilson at some stage in the title race and the young Brazilian will have to raise his game. Song's suspension and Fabregas' injury gave him the opportunity sooner than I'd expected.

So, how has Denilson done in the last couple of weeks?

This day will probably go down as one of the most sensational in World Cup history. In any other domain apart from sport heaping such agony and heartbreak on a country/continent would probably be considered a criminal or terrorist act.

Netherlands beating Brazil was an upset of sorts but it can't be called a shocker.

Arsenal are building up some momentum. A hard fought win against Birmingham was followed by an emphatic one against Shakhtar. Subsequently, a massive win over City has put us in the second spot in the League and the vibes that were highly negative at the time of the last international break just after the defeat against Chelsea, are certainly quite positive.

I hope Ramsey recovers soon and his injury won't be as serious as that of Eduardo or RvP. There isn't much I can do for him so I'll just pray and hope. The injury was really bad so I don't want to dwell on it too much right now.

The team responded brilliantly and the spirit was phenomenal. Hats off to each and every one of them.

Determined and disciplined West Ham. Inspired Robert Green. Atrocious refereeing. Lacklustre Arsenal. 0-0, game heading towards a lame draw.

Arsenal hit the turbo boost in the final stretch. 1-0, 3 points on the table. Good enough.

I know many fans expected a big win in this game. A run of good results can have that effect as it raises expectations.

The Christmas weekend matches were possibly the round of matches that passed us by without much talking points. Apart from the sacking of Gary Megson, every match and result went according to script. What are The Flat Back Four's conclusions from watching the matches over the Christmas period? Here goes.

Three weeks ago I wrote, Inter do to Chelsea, what the Blues do to us! I could easily repeat the headline for this game as well. That would be pointless though, what's the use of repeating the obvious.

I do have a few other observations and it's better to run through them. Before I do that, let me preface this article with the fact that I'm truly delighted Chelsea have been dumped out of the Champions League and this article is not an attempt to defend a Russian billionaire's plaything.

Birmingham were horrible in their tackling and Howard Webb's refereeing was nothing short of woeful. Still it was quite expected and we should have overcome these challenges but it was not to be.

I'm concerned mainly because we have been struggling with our football. Apart from the home win over Porto we haven't got our game going in most of the recent matches.

The World Cup is finally coming to life. I was hoping for an exciting game between Argentina and Korea and Maradona's team didn't disappoint. South Korea tried to follow the Switzerland blueprint but Messi taught his Barca teammates a lesson or two in breaking resolute defences.

In fairness, the Koreans weren't as well organized as Hitzfeld's team and the own goal didn't help their cause.

Drenthe: I'll be joining Liverpool

Real Madrid defender Royston Drenthe has revealed he is set to leave the Bernabeu for Liverpool.
The former Netherlands under-21 star has been well-linked with a move out of the Spanish giants and is now confident he will be playing his football in the Barclays Premier League next season.

(Summary is not available.)

As per the new regulations all the clubs have now announced their 25 player squads along with a long list of U-21 players who've been registered so that they are eligible to play in the Premier League just in case. You can see complete details of the squad lists and junior players of all the 20 clubs on the official site.

This one is a day early but until this game is out of the way I really can't think about anything else. With due respect to the previous opponents, this is the biggest game of the season so far and I've a feeling many of us are anxious to see how we perform.

Honestly speaking, I think anything is possible in this game, from a massive win to a disheartening loss.

Ask any New Englander and you'll find that there's only one football to be found in the region. Sure, the local MLS side, the New England Revolution, may play in the same stadium as the NFL's New England Patriots (both owned by billionaire Robert Kraft), but the general public consciousness and amount of media coverage among the two organizations is not even comparable.

I was bemused when I read the news that Robin van Persie has been called up to the Dutch national squad. I'm not even sure he is in full training yet and can't see the reason for this inclusion.

It seems Holland manager Bert van Marwijk has done a Jekyll and Hyde act here. I really liked the fact that De Jong has not been called up, in some ways it's an extension of the ban voluntarily imposed on him by his national manager.

Newcastle are a blow hot, blow cold kind of a team. They're capable of massive wins against sides like Sunderland and Villa but they can also lose to Blackpool at home. We don't know which one will turn up tomorrow much in the same way as we don't know which Arsenal will turn up!

The Barcodes (my favourite nickname in the Premiership) are a good team.

England were booed off once again after another uninspiring performance. I don't really care for the English football team so never feel strongly enough but they do get really boring at times.

I'm not sure if this is down to the manager or the general approach to football in England. I'd love to know what Capello truly thinks about English football.

Ever since Chamakh signed for Arsenal there has been a question, how will the Moroccan play with Van Persie in the same team. Arsene has in the past mentioned that he will look at various options including a change in formation, something that many fans have been demanding.

Intriguingly enough, we saw Van Persie in a deeper role against Wigan in the Carling Cup.

I'm finding it a bit difficult to make up my mind for this game. I can see Arsenal scoring three goals and I can also imagine us conceding three or four. Goes without saying that anything in between also seems quite possible. We could get a tight win, an exciting draw, or another in the string of bad losses against United.

Rafa Benitez is a very good manager. He's won the Champions League, UEFA Cup, La Liga, FA Cup, and probably a number of other less significant titles. If my memory serves me right the Spaniard also had the upper hand in his battles with the Dark Lord of Anti-Football when the Portuguese was at Chelsea.

Right from the moment the starting line up was announced it was clear this one was going to be an uphill battle. Things got worse right in the first minute as Stoke capitalized on their first salvo. Delap fired the only real weapon in the hosts' arsenal and Fuller made sure it found the target.

Technorati Tags: barclay's Premier league, Chelsea, wigan

The season is over and after a roller coaster journey with some highs and just as many lows we've come to a full stop at third place. It's better than 17 other teams in the League yet two short of where we really want to be. Arsene told us we should judge him in May and that's just what we are going to do.

Arsenal players put in good performances at the World Cup today. Van Persie picked up an assist, Bendtner scored a nice goal and should have had an assist (don't know why he isn't credited with one) and Song worked hard in midfield and deserved more from the game.

The day started with Holland taking on Japan.

I was waiting for the announcement of the Koscielny signing before writing this piece. But given our recent trend I'm not sure how long this is going to take so it's better to discuss this topic with the assumption that we will be signing Koscielny.

Gallas, Campbell, Silvestre and Senderos are all on their way out.

I'm delighted Spain won the World Cup. As I've often said in the past, along with Argentina, they are the team I most like to watch. And for once there can be no arguments the best team won the championship.

I can understand that people find the behaviour of Barcelona players and management to be despicable.

As the World Cup frenzy finally ends, with La Furia Roja lifting the coveted trophy and the psychic Octopus Paul ready to be fried in Garlic butter by the Germans, our focus shifts to the new season of the Barclays Premier league. We take a look at the so called traditional "Big 4" and their preparations for the upcoming battle.