Good morning from the windiest place on earth (besides an old folks on home on semolina night).

A few bits and pieces going on this morning as we head into a kind of natural lull considering we don't play again until Monday. A report in the Telegraph this morning says that Arsenal have had informal meetings with Theo Walcott over his future.

The opening weekend of the 2012 MLS season will feature a Canadian derby.

The Vancouver Whitecaps will host the Montreal Impact at BC Place on March 10 as part of MLS First Kick, the league announced on Tuesday, as bits and pieces of next season's schedule begin to be released.

It's been another bad week for Hibs.
So I'm happy to share some good news.
Seven years ago Hibs awarded their exclusive merchandise rights to themselves.
That meant the club shop at Easter Road was the only place fans could buy official club merchandise.
This had its benefits.

Ireland international Seamus Coleman believes his background in Gaelic football has put him in good stead for life in the Premier League with Everton.
The 23-year-old tasted success with underage Donegal teams and well as his club side Killybegs before opting to pursue a career in soccer when former Sligo Rovers manager Sean Connor saw enough of the St Catherine's defender to offer him a contract in the League of Ireland.

There is one new name appearing in the transfer gossip columns this morning and it's that of Celtic winger James Forrest. Unlike many of the stories we've seen over the last few months, manager Harry Redknapp has declared an interest in the 20 year old, but admits things haven't progressed any further.

Good morning. I woke up late and I have somewhere to be this morning. Funny how you never wake up late when you have nowhere to be. And it's all my alarm's fault.

I don't know about you but I need to change the sound every so often, otherwise I just get used to it and I'll sleep through it.

Good morning from the wesht of Ireland again.

To the people who emailed me yesterday asking why there was no Arshavin content in the blog despite the title, well, I just meant it was a little short. As you might imagine there is a similar dearth of material today, just like yesterday, and today's blog could be Time Bandit sized.

Well, the last couple of days have been one of those stretches. First, the match yesterday gets switched to ESPN2. No worries I think to myself. I pull out my handy DirecTV phone app and DVR the game on ESPN2 just as the match is set to start. I was only able to catch bits and pieces of the game at work, so I planned on settling down to watch the full match last night and provide a full writeup.

Morning all,

there's a rather important game this evening so before we think about players who don't want to be here any more and who might replace them, we'll focus on that.

The team news is that Johan Djourou travels, as do Armand Traore and Tomas Rosicky. The latter is still not a definite starter and will have further fitness tests pre-game to see if he can take part.

As Premier League teams have begun their summer training camps this week, we have quite a few links and bits and pieces of news to report from around the footie world. Here's what's going on in Butt's Brain: Samir Nasri ... Continue reading →

Mike Magee became the unlikely goalkeeper hero for LA in SJ this weekend. (Getty Images)

I don't honestly think I'll tak about the US-Mexico game. I watched bits and pieces of it during the FC Dallas-Portland Timbers game on Saturday. Either way you spill it the US got sucked into a black hole once Jonathan Bornstein came onto the pitch.

Liverpool-related action slows down remarkably today, as the round of internationals grinds to a halt and transfer murmurings, at least for the time being, fade to white noise. There is some CONCACAF Gold Cup action to watch, as well as a friendly between Poland and France later in the day, but otherwise we're left to the few bits and pieces of news that we can scrounge up.

Having watched bits and pieces of last night's Gold Cup opener for the United States men's national team against Canada, there were several striking observations about our beloved national side:

• The pace and tactical imagination of last night's game was miles beneath Saturday's friendly against Spain.

I get the feeling this could be a long week.

A pattern has emerged recently that after major disappointment the club goes into a kind of lockdown, a media silence ensues and we're drip fed bits and pieces via Arsenal.com. In some ways this isn't a bad thing. I know I wasn't alone in finding the timing of some articles a bit hard to take.

I'm delighted to announce that in response to absolutely nobody asking I have added one more site to my little corner of cyber space.
Asian Football Memorabilia is a look at some of the wacky and fascinating bits and pieces I have accumulated over the years since I started Jakarta Casual.
No text, it's just gonna be images of tickets, programmes, brochures and souvenirs from South East Asian clubs; a cornucopia of football memorabilia that has, as far as I'm aware, never previously been made available before in one place.

Chris Smalling has revealed how easily he has settled in to life at Manchester United and how playing in more games helps him feel like he belongs.

"A lot of the young lads have been here for a long time," he said. "I only came here in the summer and I wasn't at Fulham for too long, so I have surprised myself how settled I have become.

By Chris Wright

"Hello there old friend"

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp has confirmed to BBC Sport that he expects David Beckham to finalise his loan move from LA Galaxy to White Hart Lane at some point over the weekend.