This post is based on a conversation between one of the Arsenal Arsenal regular contributors and two individuals loosely connected with our club. It took place before Sunday's game against Manchester United.

I would not normally pass on unsubstantiated comments, but Carlito11 (the AA regular) is a mature and responsible informant and he believes there is no reason to doubt what he was told.

Former Arsenal fullback Lee Dixon believes the future of Andrey Arshavin could be away from Arsenal as his body language on the pitch shows that he is not a happy man. The Englishman who just ...

While Seattle Sounders FC rookie Servando Carrasco is only the 7th most used midfielder on the team, that should not last long. Certainly not after performances like last week when he was recognized on the team of the week with midfielders David Beckham and Juninho. While those offensive threats may get more recognition from the greater populace the defensive midfielder like Carrasco can stop build-up play and prevent the #10s in the league from advancing the ball at their feet.

Robin van Persie has tipped Arsenal youngster Ryo Miyaichi to achieve greatness at the club given the Japanese starlet's work ethic and positive attitude towards the game.

Van Persie watched from the sidelines as Miyaichi and the rest of Arsenal's Carling Cup squad defeated Shrewsbury Town 3-1 at the Emirates Stadium but even before the kick-off, he only had good things to say about his prodigal teammate.

A trip to the English Championship for our latest Fail File, Kickettes. Please leave your golf clubs at the door and follow us. Refreshments will be provided during the interval.

NAME OF APPLICANT: Craig Bellamy
POSITION/CLUB: Striker, Cardiff City FC (on loan)
BUSINESS UNDERTAKEN: Anger Management
CITED EVIDENCE: Photo (above)
KICKETTE VERDICT: Well, we're not qualified readers of body language (to be fair, most of us in the Kickette office are barely qualified to travel unaccompanied to work), but from this photo we are able to deduce that Craig may still have some difficulty in dealing with his legendary anger in a positive way.

Really not sure where to start this one, but I guess Ill begin with Scocco transfer (though I'm sure most of you have heard by now). Yep, Nacho Scocco is no longer a player of AEK. And I really don't know what to say about this... literally.

Three seasons he's been with us and in during those three seasons he has left us with so many great memories: his two goals in the 4-4 Cup Final, his two goals against Oly to give us the win in Karaiskaki, his two goals (one of them being an outrageously beautiful shot, as were most of his goals) against Aris, his two goals against Vaslui, his fantastic shot against Panionios, a number of goals against PAO.

(Your pardon is requested, señores y señoras; I've been sampling the vino tinto while half-watching the Vinotinto in Copa America as I compose this. Subsequent grammatical and logical failings will inevitably occur. You have been warned...)
...
And that, my fine feathered friends, is why we can't have nice things.

Mark Lawrenson believes Liverpool may have pulled off "the sale of the century" by persuading Chelsea to pay £50m for Fernando Torres.
And the former Reds defender is backing Luis Suarez, who was brought in to replace Torres, to help the club qualify for the Champions League.
Kenny Dalglish paid £22.

Spurs fans may soon be getting the news that they've waited for as the race to sign a striker seems to be hotting up. While we may not land Emmanuel Adebayor, Harry's comments yesterday look to be a clear indication of the club's intent to land a signature before the season starts.

So if it's not going to be Adebayor, could it be Mirko Vucinic?

Image Credit: Corrieredellosport.it. Thnx Liz!

Earlier this week, AS Roma teammates Baby Bojan and Jose Angel were involved in a minor fender bender. Angel, who was behind the wheel at the time, hit a woman on a moped with his car near the Eur area as the pair were coming home from practice.

A passionate defence of an underrated Gunner, who deserves more respect!

Marouane Chamakh is an enigma to me. My gut feeling tells me he is a very important player for us, and yet his performances to date have been regarded as unimpressive.

Gratuitous, exploitative and sexist photographs of players going about their business published just for titillation? Yes please! Image: Denis Doyle/Getty Images.

We won't disrupt your view of Iker's undercarriage with our gibberish today.

Manchester City 2-1 Villarreal

These Argentinian (or Argentine?

By Chris Wright

Fulham were dumped out of the Europa League with the very last touch of the game when Odense slung in a deep cross and substitute Baye Djiby Fall nodded in an equaliser at the far post with roughly four seconds left to play (the referee blew for full-time during the goal celebration), thus robbing the Cottagers of the points they needed to edge out Wisla Krakow, who beat table-toppers FC Twente on the night to finish second in Group K -just one point ahead of Martin Jol's side.

LIVERPOOL, England Former Liverpool defender Phil Thompson believes the "unprecedented" way the club's fans had turned on manager Roy Hodgson was instrumental in his departure. Liverpool announced that Hodgson had left the club by "mutual consent" with the Reds 12th in the Barclays Premier League, just four points above the relegation zone.

Liverpool legend Phil Thompson believes that Roy Hodgson had no future at the club once he had lost the supporters.
Thompson said he had never before seen the Liverpool fans so unified in opposition to a manager, including Graeme Souness' ill-fated spell at the helm in the early 90s.
He described the fans' stance against Hodgson as "unprecedented'' - but also said that he felt the former Fulham boss had not been given enough time to mould the team in his own vision.

It is a sentence every reporter is loathe to write, but yesterday on the lonely expanse of Liverpool's training ground, a picture really did paint a thousand words.
As Fernando Torres trailed forlornly around the Melwood pitch, alone except for the shadow of one of the coaching staff, the image perfectly summed up his last few months at the club and his last day in the historic red shirt.

In the 2010 NBA Draft, most scouts agreed that DeMarcus Cousins had as much talent as any player in the draft. However, due to character red flags, Cousins dropped to the fifth overall spot before he was selected by the Sacramento Kings. As it turns out, those red flags were more than legit DeMarcus Cousins is just a crazy dude.

By Afroza Begum, writing from Singapore

If you had tried telling any Liverpool fan when Kenny Dalglish stepped into the picture as Liverpool's new manager that a bomb much bigger than the plight that Roy Hodgson had left the club that finished 2nd in the league and was facing the worst luck in football history, they would have told you it couldn't possibly get any worse.

There's not much more that needs to be said on this matter: Benny Assou Ekotto is probably one of the most highly coveted football figures amongst the British media these days. He's provided yet another refreshingly honest and entertaining interview, this time for BBC Sport.
Benny has been discussed in recent months on this blog, after he was criticised by Alan Hansen and after the Daily Mail interview a few weeks back, so there's little need to further analyse this latest offering.

Joe Cole faced up to the reality of his uncertain Anfield future, by admitting last night he must take things 'day by day'.
The England midfielder has endured a tough time since his high-profile move to Liverpool last summer and already there are suggestions the writing is on the wall for him at the club, with Tottenham rumoured to be a potential summer destination.

As LeBron James was taking his talents to South Beach, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert said that LeBron quit against the Boston Celtics last year. Yes, seeing as LeBron was leaving his franchise, Gilbert's comments were probably a bad case of sour grapes. However, that said, LeBron has a lot of questions to answer over the next couple weeks as the Miami Heat take on the Boston Celtics.

Well bugger me. Who knew? Last we heard Liverpool were a deluded team caught up in their glorious but distant past, on the rebound from appointing our best ever manager. Then this.

Fulham were in many ways the archetects of their own downfall how many times have you seen Hangeland and Hughes made to look like amateurs?

Carroll and Kuyt, Please Stand Up
by Thomas Atzenhoffer on The Bleacher Report
April 12, 2011
Michael Regan/Getty ImagesOn a night that held so much remembrance of life and loss for Liverpool it was an inspired performance by the Reds.
A minute of silence before the game remembered the 96 fans that were crushed at Hillsborough 22 years ago this coming Friday.

I had a rant a week or so ago at some Chelsea fans with all their negativity about our performances in pre-season. People were moaning about a lack of signings and the way we were playing so I posted an article called "Enough is enough".
In that post, my message was clear, we are in pre season after only being back in training for a couple of weeks and also getting used to the climate in the Far East.

Arsene Wenger is having none of it.

"We focus on the players we have and we believe we have enough strength. I saw all the games over the weekend and I don't see why we should be suddenly afraid of anybody in England."

Alright then. This is all deja vu time. Wenger puts up another one of his bombastic statements (choose your pick: Quadruple, Super Additions, Abou Diaby is the next Patrick Vieira) and then on the day of the match prowls on the sidelines looking sick as a dog as things don't go Arsenal's way.

Teams that make the playoffs find ways to win games; teams that don't find ways to lose.

At the moment, Chivas USA are the latter.

*Staff Writer Jill Painter has the game story.

Watch (if you can):

The body language said more than the grasping for positives comments after the game:

For Chivas USA the season is threatening to slip away.

Over the last few days, we've looked at some of the existing members of the Spurs squad and tried to judge what sort of season we can expect from them.

At the moment, Aaron Lennon seems to be splitting opinion down the middle and some have even argued that it's time for him to move on.

England manager Fabio Capello is preparing a clear-out of senior players after becoming convinced that too many of his squad have been "scarred" by previous failures, reports said on Thursday.
Several newspapers speculated that the axe was hovering over Frank Lampard, James Milner, Rio Ferdinand and Gareth Barry as Capello attempts to freshen up his team with next year's Euro 2012 finals in mind.

Photo: Earl Gardner

Union

In this week's power rankings roundup, the Philadelphia Union move up one spot to no. 10 at MLSsoccer.com ("They haven't won in a long time, their body language is not particularly good right now, they're inconsistent offensively and the defense is suddenly leaky.

Robbie Fowler believes Fernando Torres has regrets about leaving Liverpool for Chelsea, arguing that it's clear from the Spain International's body language that the wishes he'd stayed at Anfield.Fowler, who currently plays for Muangthong United in Thailand, argued:"I've heard people say that deep down Fernando wishes that he had stayed at Liverpool.

Robbie Fowler believes Fernando Torres has regrets about leaving Liverpool for Chelsea, arguing that it's clear from the Spain International's body language that the wishes he'd stayed at Anfield.Fowler, who currently plays for Muangthong United in Thailand, argued:"I've heard people say that deep down Fernando wishes that he had stayed at Liverpool.

Kick of the water bottle show Suarez is a winner

Luis Suarez frustration after being substituted with ten minutes to go against Wolves on Saturday is just a sign of his winning mentality. Body Language. A term often used to backup theories of a player's discontent.

Kick of the water bottle shows Suarez is a winner

Luis Suarez frustration after being substituted with ten minutes to go against Wolves on Saturday is just a sign of his winning mentality. Body Language. A term often used to backup theories of a player's discontent.

It was a moderately diverting night in Valencia. Chelsea put in a solid performance and had come close to what would have been a solidly impressive win, only for Solomon Kalou's momentary lapse of reason for minutes from time, which cost Chelsea a penalty kick and, subsequently, two points in their Champions League group.

I look at Theo Walcott and I see a frustrated figure.
To me, he is in danger of becoming as stale as the loaf of bread that's been in my bread bin since 2007. Though he isn't as mouldy.
At the moment Theo doesn't look like he is enjoying his football.
His body language is worse than my French and his face looks like a smacked arse.

Fredy Montero throws it all at the ball during Seattle Sounders' unsuccessful trip to Real Salt Lake. It worked out pretty well for us, though. Image: George Frey/Getty Images North America.

All the pictorial action from the first legs of the MLS playoffs is right here, cupcakes. The decisive second leg games commence tomorrow (exciting bracket thingy here for information purposes) so lap it while you can because on Friday we will be hungover as all hell and unprepared for another recap.

Chelsea striker Fernando Torres left Anfield under a cloud of bitter fan resentment in January, and since then, the anger and acrimony towards him seems to have grown exponentially. You would think that El Nino would be the last person Liverpool fans would want to see back at the club, but it seems that the same fans who burned Torres' shirt would love to see him back at the club.

John Barnes recently argued that Liverpool fans should 'move on' and stop wasting 'negative energy' on Fernando Torres, but despite the acrimony towards the Spaniard, there are still lots of fans - myself included - who would love to see El Nino back at Anfield. LFC Legends Ray Houghton and Gary Gillespie are not so sure though.

It sounds crazy, but could a loan spell at Liverpool be the perfect tonic for Torres?

It seems almost impossible to be suggesting this, but I'm beginning to feel sorry for Fernando Torres. There, I've said it, got it out in the open, off my chest, to rank along with all those other guilty secrets like a fondness for ELO and a teenage crush on the Shake 'n' Vac lady.

Respected Daily Mirror columnist David Maddock wrote an interesting article about Chelsea's Fernando Torres during the week.
He explored the depths to which the once all-conquering Spanish and ex- Liverpool forward has sunken to the depths of warming the bench for his present club when he could be scoring goals for fun at his old club Liverpool.