With unlimited transfers available before the whistle blows for the first match in English Premier League it's a good time to start tinkering with your Fantasy Premier League team. As always, every contender starts with £100M and his or her imagination when starting to collect player for their respectable teams.

With unlimited transfers available before the whistle blows for the first match in English Premier League it's a good time to start tinkering with your Fantasy Premier League team. As always, every contender starts with £100M and his or her imagination when starting to collect player for their respectable teams.

Fantasy Premier League tips can be found here on FPLBlog, every gameweek. Come and check out the best player picks and transfers. You can also read gameweek reviews, upcoming match previews and everything that will help you do better in Barclays Fantasy Soccer.
Check out the new posts under the recents posts and featured posts with the best overall tips and strategies to succeed in Fantasy Premier League.

I have always been at the front of the line in taking shots at Landon Donovan - too soft, vanishes in big games.
Well, Donovan has made me eat my words in his successful stint with Everton in the English Premier League. His success is proving many of his critics wrong (starting with me), and his stock has gone up significantly in world football.

Somebody tweeted this yesterday and I thought it was kind of interesting. (Thank you, Somebody.) The Castrol Rankings have have our very own Clint Dempsey listed as the 19th best player in the Prem. Just what are the Castrol Rankings, you ask? Well, here's what Castrol have to say:

"As an Official Sponsor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ we've developed a definitive system for rating the world's best players.

There is something to be said about keeping your best player and marking up the value on him when you can. The LA Galaxy appear to be doing just that and honestly it shouldn't come to a shock that the price that they want for their MVP Landon Donovan is high. Try $16 million high according to Martin Rogers over at Yahoo!

The best player to pull on an England World Cup shirt? In case you were wondering how much a match worn England World Cup shirt is worth in Germany at the minute, the answer is not very much. Bastian Schweinsteiger got his hands on Frank Lampard's shirt after Germany's last-16 victory over England (a special gift [.

Everton midfielder Landon Donovan has chimed in on his performance in yesterday's 2-1 victory over Chelsea, saying it was one of the top moments he has experienced in his career. The Los Angeles Galaxy loan star set up the team's first goal with another spot-on corner kick, drew a penalty just before halftime (that Louis Saha missed) and was rated the team's best player on the night by many in both the British and American media.

Real Madrid is a club that can persuade any player in the world simply on the basis of glamour. However, along with a hefty salary these days that's about all you're guaranteed. Trophies don't come as much as they'd used to capital in recent years and it seems as if the only possible trophy heading to Madrid is the Europa League, and that's for neighbours' Atletico.

Grant Wahl has a knack for getting the United States' top players to open up to him. A year ago, his book The Beckham Experiment garnered worldwide attention after exposing a rift between Landon Donovan and his Los Angeles Galaxy teammate David Beckham. Now, it's US midfielder Clint Dempsey who is pouring his guts out to Wahl, upset over what he says was unfair criticism lobbed his way by former international and current ESPN commentator John Harkes during last summer's Confederations Cup.

Uneven, inconsistent, somewhat encouraging while at the the same time eminently maddening; the United States' performance on Saturday night against Poland was all of those things. But what most stuck out for fans and analysts alike was the strong performance by the team's long-awaited addition, American-German Jermaine Jones.

Supporters of Stu Holden, the USMNT player and former Houston Dynamo star, have been singing the midfielder's praise all season for his breakout role with Bolton. Now Holden, in his first English Premier League season, is also getting recognized by the fans there as well.
Readers of "The Guardian," using their average player ratings for each EPL match, have chosen the American international as their "best player so far this term".

With the way teams have played so far, I think the current top 4 in the east - New York, Kansas City, Columbus, and Chicago - are going to probably be the top 4 at the end of the season in some form or another. Toronto and DC look absolutely terrible, and they'll have to make huge changes to be able to compete with the top 4 teams.

Come forward and make yourself known so that the media pack can feed on your bones!

Think Spain will lift the World Cup? Bet with Betfair and get £25 free!

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Looks like USA football stud Landon Donovan is heading for a tabloid sh*t storm.

After the most recent edition of El Cl sico, I've heard lots of pithy statements about Spanish football. The best was, "Mourinho should punish Sergio Ramos by forcing him to play as a defender." Most people praised Barcelona's incredible football. The Spanish speaking commentators I listened to repeatedly called the Blaugrana's style a dance; it was hard to disagree.

Awwwww, Major League Soccer. If anyone should be an MLS fan it should be me. I grew up playing the sport; I love watching the sport; I've covered the sport at the high school, college and professional level; I have a blog called IntelligentSoccer.com. If the MLS can't win me over there's something seriously wrong.

photo credit: Nigel Wilson

Fernando Torres has scored twelve goals in fifteen matches this year. In other words he is reeling Liverpool's only hope at landing in the top four by season's end. And it is just fitting for the Reds that their only hope at salvaging their year just went down a week back with a devastating knee injury.

In the coming days there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth about the fact that the Premier League, for the first time in seven years, has no teams in the semi-final of the Champions League. Boo Hoo. Does anyone outside of the media really care?

There's a staggering degree of hubris amongst the English media about the Premier League, frequently calling it the best in the world and the place where all the top players want to play.

Anybody who watched the Barcelona Arsenal game last week will have witnessed maybe the best player in the world today, Argentine Lionel Messi, score all 4 goals in the Spanish side's impressive 4-1 win. Lionel Messi - a very humble player And he was at it again yesterday scoring the first goal in Barcelona's decisive 2-0 win [.

So with the World Cup coming up, many of you will be looking for a team to follow either as a second team when your team inevitably gets knocked out in the Quarter Finals on Penalties (perhaps that one is just me) or because your team didn't make it to South Africa. Either way, at some point you are going to need someone to follow.

Ahead of Manchester United's 1-0 victory over Wolves, which was a hard fought affair that we came close to drawing, Sir Alex Ferguson was critical of our star player, Wayne Rooney. After struggling for fitness three days earlier in the League Cup final, and seeing team mate Michael Owen pick up an injury on the disgraceful pitch, Rooney played 86 minutes for England in a friendly, on that same dodgy pitch.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

By ADAM SERRANO

There is a chance, just not a very good one.

That's is how LA Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena described a potential extension on Landon Donovan's loan at English Premier League side Everton after the Galaxy's training session on Monday.

"He passed them to death all day" Gary Neville

On behalf of all United fans across the globe, Gary Neville understandably gave Paul Scholes an absolute smacker after his masterclass at Eastlands. It was proof, if any were needed, that Scholes can still provide the goods and that age is just a number.

If you're unfamiliar with World Cup Blog, then allow me to explain: The blog you're reading now is the front page, but the core of WCB is the multitude of team specific blogs, including one for each of the World Cup 2010 teams.

The authors of these team blogs have forgotten more about their sides than I'll ever know, so I decided to tap that knowledge by asking each of them a set of 10 questions.

When France and Spain met on May 15, 2004 for the final of the UEFA Under-17 Championship, Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas were one against each other. The Spaniard won the best player award, the ...

News today that Newcastle United are ready to challenge Everton for the loan signing of Landon Donovan in January. Landon is the USA's best player and certainly shone for Everton last January when he was on loan at Everton, and if Newcastle can get this player he would add some creativity to the Newcastle attack, [.

It's been a big weekend for John Terry. Since news that a High Court Injunction granted last week had been lifted broke on Friday afternoon, rumours and headlines about the Chelsea and England captain have been rife.
He has been castigated in all quarters as national newspapers, football pundits and pub-goers alike have all taken turns to pass judgement on the star's private life - qualified as they are to do so.

When Landon Donovan takes the field for Everton against Liverpool on Saturday (7:30am, ESPN2), he will be doing more than playing in the most important match he's played in since going to England on loan. Donovan will also be looking to exorcise some demons against the same team he faced when he put in arguably the worst performance of his career.

In the Jewish faith, the act of becoming a man at thirteen is a huge step. Standing before your family, friends, and the community as a whole, you are recognized as a full member of the community. For me as a Jew, that is the moment that I became a man. For most of you, you can probably remember the moment that you became a man.

Owen Hargreaves

With 67 days to go before the big kick-off in South Africa, recent developments have changed the look of England's squad with currently several positions still up for grabs due to injuries and form issues. Let's look at some of the questions Fabio Capello has to deal with before the plane leaves.

Sponsored post It is a blow to lose your best player but the top teams can always live without one player, even if it's their best player. One-man teams really struggle once their star player is missing. One example of a one man team is Arsenal. This may be controversial: they admittedly have some top players such [.

I am too delirious and hurried to write anything incoherently. So here are some thoughts: They're good at making us suffer, aren't they? I understand why they say about a goal being an orgasmic moment now. Yet another goal disallowed for offside. I'm not arguing for instant replay in soccer, I think it's not workable, but there needs to be better trained linesmen.

Who's the underdog in this match? If you have to ask the question, then the chances are that there isn't an underdog. On paper this match is almost perfectly balanced. The Soccer Power Index (SPI) game indicator presents this balance as a win being slightly in favor of Ghana at 51% chance of a win versus, obviously, 49% for a win for the US.

We were pleased to see that the outstanding player at this year's World Cup in South Africa was Uruguayan star Diego Forlan, who was voted the Golden Ball for the best player at the tournament. Diego Forlan a gentleman and real hero in our eyes Diego wasn't given much of a chance at [...]

Photo: Action Images

Stuart James writes in the Guardian that Stephen Ireland, who joined Aston Villa this week as part of the deal that took James Milner in the opposite direction, tore into everyone, from the manager Roberto Mancini to the club's "money-obsessed" young players, as he revealed the full extent of his anger at the way he has been treated.

This was the week in which John Terry was very naughty boy, Arjen Robben was told to change his underwear, Guti became the best player in Spain, Robinho received a hero's welcome in Santos and Tim Cahill proved he was better than a flea.

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.

Highlights Argentina 0-4 Germany 1. Now we can safely assume that Diego Maradona actually knows Thomas Mueller is not a ball boy. 2. England are better than Argentina. The evidence is conclusive... 3. There wasn't too much hype surrounding Bastian Schweinsteiger before the tournament, but if you were asked to pick the best player in the world based [.

1) Nobody plays "total football" any more, so please stop referring to it unless you are providing helpful historical context. Even if you call it Totaalvoetbal, teams would get slaughtered if they tried it against modern tactical sides.

2) The current Dutch team aren't the "heirs" of anything except perhaps the drills created and overseen by coaches and trainers at Ajax's football academy.

A nice little graphic with Forlan's tournament statisticsAfter the World Cup, it's not all over, there's still plenty of awards to be dished out even if your team didn't lift the trophy. When the nominees were announced, I put up a post with the Golden Ball (best player of the tournament) and Best Young Player award nominees, I forgot about the Golden Glove (best goalkeeper of the tournament), but that award seemed already decided.