Carlos Vela
Originally uploaded by fudailah Victoria de los gunners en la Carling CupCon un gol del mexicano Carlos Vela, Arsenal derroto este martes 2-0 a la escuadra West Bromwich Albion en el Emirates Stadium.
Vela entro de cambio y al notar fue su primer gol del joven mexicano en la temporada, con el cual logró que Arsenal pasara a Octavos de Final de la Carling.

In his first start for Hull City in Carling Cup action, our young American scored from long distance and played a full 90 minutes in a 3-1 win against Southend United.
That's rave reviews from coach Phil Brown after his second-straight game.

Brown said: "The biggest bonus of the night wasn't just the fact some young lads have made their debuts and done well, it was getting 90 minutes out of Jozy Altidore.

Carling Cup Round Two
Southend United suffered their first defeat of the season as they went down 3-1 to Premier League side Hull City at the K C Stadium.
The home side took the lead through Tom Cairney on 7 minutes. They doubled their advantage with three minutes of the first half remaining when Jozy Altidore scored a cracking debut goal.

Still very much part of Sir Alex's plans?

Anderson arrived a fresh faced teenager and wowed fans and critics alike with his mature performances at the heart of the Man United midfield. He was quite simply too good too quickly. By this I mean the Brazilian should have been blooded in the clubs colours slowly and surely until he could build himself into a talent worthy of consistent selection.

It took a few days, but a video of Jozy Altidore's Carling Cup goal has finally surfaced.

Here's his 30-yard free-kick blast:

What did you think of the goal? Ready to see Altidore try some free kicks for the U.S. national team?

Share your thoughts below.

So how has Jozy Altidore done in his transfer to the Hull City Tigers? Well, lets just say the kids got game.

Here was Jozy's first professional EPL assist, a crucial game changer that helped Hull City net their first win of the campaign (watch from 3:25 on):

Hull City v Bolton Wanderers
by donchesko10

The kid has a nose for goal.

Watch out, kids If you thought the most disturbing thing to come out of the Carling Cup final was that Cristiano Ronaldo got booked for diving on the one occasion when he didn't actually dive, think again. OTP has spotted a mysterious figure on the arm of Manchester United midfielder Anderson. The strange sketch seems to [.

If you have a thing against strikers (whether you're a former/current defender or you love 0-0 draws), then you may want to skip today's roundup, since it's an especially striker-centric one.

Manchester United have just signed one striker, but they may well not be done bringing new goal-getters to Old Trafford.

Jozy Altidore scored his first Hull goal as the Tigers claimed a place in the third round of the Carling Cup with a 3-1 win over Southend.
The USA striker marked his first start by doubling a much-changed Hull side's lead after a brilliant opener from debutant Tom Cairney at the KC Stadium.

With Setanta UK on the verge of going into administration after losing the TV rights to the Premier League through 2013 in the UK as well as losing the TV rights to the Scottish Premier League, the demise of Setanta UK looks certain. It may be days or hours before the plug is pulled.

The big question is what will happen to Setanta US?

After a disappointing 0-2 loss to Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League Final, speculation around Cristiano Ronaldo's future remains. He's been linked with a move to Real Madrid after winning all the major trophies at Manchester United. For Ronaldo, a move to Real Madrid would be a new challenge and a different style of play in La Liga.

When Rafa Benitez splashed out £17 million on Roma sensation Alberto Aquilani, you could fully understand Liverpool supporters' optimism that their Champions League winning coach had taken their team another giant step closer to winning their first league title in nearly twenty years.

Having won the treble in style, Barcelona are all-over the headlines, not just for having won things but of course, for the way they did it. No ugly football, no defending after taking the lead, just nice passing and nice football.

Now to be honest, the Spaniards have ALWAYS put on show this type of football game and when they had coaches who wanted to change that, they got fired straight away, so to those who love Wenger no matter what, no, he's not the only coach who can teach his players to play like that.

It was a very successful season for several Americans playing abroad in European soccer. Tim Howard was one of the top goalkeepers for Everton, and Clint Dempsey played a major role in Fulham earning a 7th place finish in the Premier League. Oguchi Oneywu played for Standard and won another league title in Belgium, while Zak Whitbread and Millwall nearly were promoted to the English Championship.

The best fans in the world? Is it harmless banter or malicious intent that fuels the football fans chanting and taunting from the terraces? I better get this out the way now, I'm a Manchester United fan...and after our recent Carling Cup clash with Derby County on January 7 I found myself questioning the passion that fuels the darker side of football support.

We've been split down the middle with our opinions of Dimitar Berbatov ever since he made the decision to swap North London for Old Trafford. You've had those supporters that are mesmerised by his beautiful touch and close control and then there are fans who continually berate his unambiguous lacksidasical style that, at the end of the day, epitomises him as a player.

The English Carling Cup began its second round of play with several Americans playing in matches on Tuesday August 25, 2009. The most noticable was recent Hull City signee Jozy Altidore who scord his first goal for the club. Other Americans playing were Jonathan Spector for West Ham, Marcus Hahnemann for Wolverhampton, and Mike Grella for Leeds United.

Each season more and more Americans are playing abroad in European leagues. Clint Dempsey remains a solid contributor for Fulham in the English Premier League and Tim Howard is still a top goalkeeper for Everton. Oguchi Onyewu is now with AC Milan in the Italian Serie A and Charlie Davies has joined Sochaux in the French Ligue 1.

There has been a lot of hope and anticipation around Carlos Vela. He had a good pre-season tour, so we expected to see what the Mexican can do in the Premier League. With Nasri, Fabregas, Walcott and Vela linking up I expected to see many a defence cut to shreds.

Unfortunately Vela was never given the opportunity in the league.

The English Carling Cup began its second round of play on Tuesday August 25, 2009 with several matches. The story taking center stage was violence breaking out between Millwall and West Ham United outside Upton Park. One fan was stabbed but is in stable condition and there appear to be no other serious injuries.

Jozy Altidore's transition into English soccer is going as well as anybody could have hoped as the U.S. national team striker scored his first goal for Hull City in a 2-1 victory against Southend in Carling Cup play on Tuesday.

Altidore scored a 42nd-minute goal on a 30-yard strike to push Hull City into the third round of the Carling Cup.

Your reputation precedes you, Mr Ronaldo Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo thought he had won a penalty during yesterday's Carling Cup final when Ledley King tripped him in the area. Referee Chris Foy had other ideas and booked Ronaldo for diving. Replays show that King clearly caught the Portuguese international and that a penalty should have been [.

Are you a fan of Frank Lampard? Don't worry, if you choose not to answer in the affirmative, you surely have some company. While I have written several articles here at Premiership Talk to demonstrate my support for Frank Lampard, this article is not about my support.

Carlos Tevez scored his debut goal today against Crystal Palace in the second round of the Carling Cup. The Argentinian scored the second of a 2-0 win. Wright-Phillips scored the other one and City has now qualified to the third round.

Watch Tevez's goal. Crystal Palace 0 2 Manchester City

There was big movement in the rankings this week as both England and Argentina reached a point in their schedules from which last season's numbers have been discarded. This hurts Arsenal, primarily, though we expect to see them return to the rankings before too long. Currently, only three of the top ten domestic leagues in the world have yet to play enough matches to have last season's statistics drop off: Portugal, Italy and Spain.

by GIANFRANCO PANIZO

For the Americans Abroad, Wednesday was a decent day in terms of performance.

Kenny Cooper scored his third goal in European competition, netting in the 50th minute of 1860 Munich's match vs. Hertha Berlin. Cooper's goal gave 1860 Munich a 2-0 lead at the time, but Hertha Berlin would pull level and force penalties.

For the record, the photo accompanying this article is from Thursday's Boca Juniors match with Chacarita Juniors at the Bombonera. It had no effect on the rankings, but I wanted to post a photo of my own to the entry.

For the first time in over a month, a club remained at the top spot of the rankings for consecutive weeks as Chelsea solidified its position at the top with a pair of 4-0 victories over Bolton Wanderers this week.

Darren Gibson's classy two goals, helped an experimental Red Devils triumph over a near full strength Tottenham in their Carling Cup quarter final match at Old Trafford last night... and Sir Ferg. was happy as Larry. Goal.com And Darron Gibson is the one player in our club who can score great .

As if getting humiliated by Manchester United was not enough, yesterday we allowed Chelsea to score Arsenal's heaviest home defeat in the league since 1960. For many, impatience is now turning into frustration and for others, it is turning into anger.

For me, personally, it's still frustration, simple because not much changed since October/November when with Diaby and Silvestre playing we were totally outplayed by Manchester City away from home.

It took over an hour for Wenger's young side to overcome Championship leaders West Brom but goals from Sanchez Watt and Carlos Vela lead the north London side through to the next round.

Don't forget to check out Online Football Manager!

So we are just shy of being one-third of the way through the season and we're already at our third (!) interlull. When we return, it will be crunch time with 11 matches in the next 42 days, including Chelsea at home, Liverpool away, the final CL group stage fixtures, and, of course, City away in the Carling Cup quarterfinals.

In the second part of the report of players who were threatening to make a move into the first team we look at Mark Randal, Jay Simpson and Harvard Nordveit.

Mark Randall

Randall was the one player who should have made the step up this season. He was on the fringes last season, but this season he was on the bench frequently in the early part of the season.

PREMIER LEAGUE

Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal have all qualified for the Champions League. The top three will go straight to the group stage, while the fourth-placed team will face a play-off.

English clubs are offered three places in the Europa League (formerly the Uefa Cup) - for the FA Cup winners, the Carling Cup winners and the fifth-placed team in the Premier League.

Hungarian women raced to the Fantasy Premier League finish line with varying physiques and varying success rates
Let's go month by month and revisit some of our premier league predictions. The good, the bad, and the ugly. In part I, we look at predictions from 2008. In part II, we'll look at 2009.

In its years of broadcasting in North America, Setanta has been both a godsend and a detriment to the success of the Premier League in the United States. It's been a godsend because, in combination with Fox Soccer Channel, die-hard followers of the league have been able to watch almost every single Premier League for several years.

Jesus I am going to have nightmares about this for weeks. The quality of the acting from the former Sheffield Wednesday and England man is pretty good and is kind of Anthony Hopkins from Silence of the Lambs-esque. Scary!

Get a free £10 bet on your club by joining William Hill now.

Nice game face, Benjamin
Nice game face, Tomasz
With Manchester United # 1 Edwin van der Sar sidelined with a broken finger, the goalkeeping shirt is up for grabs at Old Trafford. And while it looks like Carling Cup hero Ben Foster is first in line to claim the starting spot - fantasy premier league managers should proceed with caution as Tomasz Kusczak waits in the wings.

Football hooliganism made an unwanted return to English football yesterday as scores of West Ham and Milwall United fans clashed with each other and police before, during and after the teams' League Cup match at Upton Park. The evening's viloence included a 44-year-old man being stabbed in the chest, pitch invasions during and after the match.

There are a number of interesting things going on in the Yanks Soccer world today, so it's time for us to catch up on all the things going on. More after the jump...

-To start off, I need to pimp three articles I have written for goal.com recently. The first is the new outlook of the US World Cup Roster based on the post Azteca fallout.

The News of The World reported on Sunday that brewing giants Carlsberg have shown interest in the naming-rights for the mythical new Liverpool Stadium.The paper claims that the Beer Company has offered £100 million in a ten-year deal which would be another small step in raising the £500 million needed to build the new ground.