54 years ago in Munich, 8 of Manchester United's brightest stars were killed when the aircraft that was bringing them back home crashed. Along with them, 3 of the backroom staff, 8 journalists and 2 other passengers also perished bringing the total casualty count to 21. Nothing could have prepared the city of Manchester and indeed the whole footballing world for a tragedy of that scale.

"It only took nine years" was the cry from South-West London last summer, when AFC Wimbledon won promotion back to the Football League after a dramatic penalty-shoot-out win as if there is any other sort against Luton Town at The City of Manchester Stadium in the Blue Square Premier play-off final.

The once-formidable Anfield fortress now resembles a welcoming visitor centre. The sense of overwhelming intimidation, so integral to Liverpool's success during their prime, is in danger of becoming a memory.
It is revived for special occasions – no doubt the double header with the city of Manchester this month will reawaken passions – but too many Premier League encounters have failed to raise beyond the humdrum.

The once-formidable Anfield fortress now resembles a welcoming visitor centre. The sense of overwhelming intimidation, so integral to Liverpool's success during their prime, is in danger of becoming a memory.
It is revived for special occasions – no doubt the double header with the city of Manchester this month will reawaken passions – but too many Premier League encounters have failed to raise beyond the humdrum.

Manchester United defeated Manchester City 3-2 on Sunday in the English FA Cup. The game was played at the City of Manchester Stadium in front of a sell out crowd. The last two times the teams had faced off against each other there had been a total of 12 goals, 6-1 to Manchester City at Old Trafford in the English Premier League and 3-2 to Manchester United at Wembley for the Community Shield clash.

If Carroll starts he'll be looking for those delicious crosses from Gerrard...Liverpool travel to the City of Manchester Stadium on Tuesday evening to face Mancini's side for the first of three times this month. The Reds will be looking to take advantage of City after they lost to Sunderland on Sunday.

Round 1 Of 3 Versus City

If Carroll starts he'll be looking for those delicious crosses from Gerrard... Liverpool travel to the City of Manchester Stadium on Tuesday evening to face Mancini's side for the first of three times this month. The Reds will be looking to take advantage of City after they lost to Sunderland on Sunday.

Will Koscielny pocket another multi million pound striker?

When I say horror city, I don't mean Manchester City the team (although I won't be far off with that). It is of course a return to the City of Manchester where our last visit there for a match was one to be forgotten. Had this match be immediately after that one, I would be very worried.

STARTERS
You can now go buy your own copy of the movie Rise & Shine: The Jay DeMerit Story on DVD.
dN
The whole city of Manchester has been dark for over 24 hours now. Pitch black. Are they all dead. They probably want to be as both United and City were bounced from the Champions League yesterday.

Here's my Hat Trick:

1. Well, yesterday was certainly interesting in UEFA Champions League qualifying. Both mighty Manchester teams suffered quite the disgrace in failing to move into the final round of 16 in the Champions League. Manchester City, despite an obscenely rich owner, will now have to look to the Europa League for some hardware.

With the completion of the last of Group matches yesterday, we now clearly know the clubs which will go to the next stage of 2011-2012 Champions League Tournament. Bayern Munich, Napoli, Inter Milan, CSKA Moscow, Benfica, FC Basel, Real Madrid, Lyon, Chelsea bayer Leverkusen, Arsenal, Marseille, Apoel Nicosia, Zenit St Petersburg, Barcelona and AC Milan are the ones qualified for the knock out stage of 2011-12 Champions League.

Anyone taking a bet at the start of the season would not have been able to predict how this would all end up. Manchester City and Manchester United kissed goodbye to the Champions League this season, and there were few mitigating factors that they could cite as a defence. Manchester United can point to their injury list and Manchester City can invoke their inexperience, but ultimately both clubs have resources that dwarf almost all others in Europe.

Dates fixed for LFC's Carling Cup semi-final games

THE dates for the semi-finals of the Carling Cup have been announced and Liverpool will play both legs of their tie with Manchester City on Wednesday nights, both with 7:45pm kick-offs. The first leg, in Manchester, is on January 11th and will be shown live on BBC1.

Keep it under your hats but Spurs can go third tonight. Yes. Exactly. Ruddy heck. In a season where the City of Manchester is shaking off the ghastly idea of having to actually compete with the rest of the league and instead branching off and starting their own SUPER AWESOME MEGA league where non-local types aren't even allowed past reception, there's a feeling that anything's possible in the race for, well, everything else.

If there was the slightest slither of doubt before, there probably isn't any more. As much as some would like to wish it isn't so, Manchester City glided to another comfortable win this afternoon against Newcastle United at The City of Manchester Stadium. It was a result which confirmed that Manchester United are going to have a hell of a job in keeping up with them the gap this afternoon went from five points to eight, and then back to five again with United's tepid win at Swansea City this evening while Newcastle United's run near the top of the Premier League table started to look more like a temporary position than it has been at any other point of the season so far.

Premier League leader, Manchester City became the only unbeaten side in the competition this weekend after they successfully ended Newcastle United, who before the match had a similar record, at the City of Manchester with a 3-1 scoreline.

Although the score might be a bit convincing but it wasn't actually an easy match for Roberto Mancini's side as they needed individual errors from Newastle's defenders to start their domination on the pitch.

Venue: City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester. Date: Sat 19th November, 2011. Kick-off: 3.00pm. Referee: Chris Foy (Linesmen: D Bryan & D.C.Richards). Don't forget that as usual, we will also be doing our usual "what the managers are saying" review in the run up to the game, and also our regular "match banter" feature where you [.

Fancy a chance to watch Manchester City vs Bayern Munich 'LIVE' at the City of Manchester stadium on Dec 7? You can't say no to Kun Aguero or Philipp Lahm, guys! Heineken is giving out a PAIR of tickets to Fabulous Futbolita Fans to catch one of the biggest Champions League clashes up-closethis season, with the Heineken Star Player Game available on iPhone and Facebook.

Competition time One lucky OTP reader will win a pair of tickets to the Manchester City v Bayern Munich match at Eastlands on 7 December. We're still talking about events from last time the two teams met, so it promises to be a great match. We've teamed up with Heineken StarPlayer to offer this fantastic [.

The most highly-anticipated match of the European club season has arrived, with rivals Manchester United and Manchester City clashing today with first place in the English Premier League and bragging rights in the city of Manchester on the line.

Manchester City is currently in first place, riding the stellar form of striker Edin Dzeko and midfielder David Silva, but City hasn't played nearly as tough a schedule early on as Manchester United, who have already faced Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool while City has yet to face any of those regulars in the EPL Top Four.

The 2011-2012 Champions League Group Stage is underway, with Matchday 1 halfway done. Eight matches in the books yesterday, eight more matches coming up later today.

See below for yesterday's results the most surprising that Barcelona and Milan drew in the Camp Nou; below that are today's fixtures with our preview notes (including a preview of Benfica-ManU sent in Jon Novy):

Tues 13 September 2011 Results

Group E: Chelsea 2 0 Leverkusen; Genk 0 0 Valencia

Group F: Olympiacos 0 1 Marseille; Dortmund 1 1 Arsenal

Group G: Porto 2 1 Shakhtar Donetsk; APOEL 2 1 Zenit

Group H: Barcelona 2 2 Milan; Plzeň 1 1 BATE

Wed 14 September 2011 Fixtures & Notes

Group A: This is the proverbial Group of Death.

These are exciting times to be supporters of either Manchester United or Manchester City. The two Manchester clubs are currently slugging it out at the top of the Premiership. Whatever City can do with their expensively assembled superstars, United are outdoing them with their expensively acquired youngsters!

Two Manchester team, Manchester United and Manchester City, continues their fine form in the early part of this new season as both once again picked convincing victories, with their star players, Wayne Rooney and Sergio Aguero each getting hattrick this weekend, adding the similarities the two clubs already had.

One year after his £28 milion transfer from Inter Milan to Manchester City, Mario Balotelli doesn't looks in the center of Roberto Mancini's project for the season 2011-2012.

The Italian manager left "Super Mario" in the bench in the first three appearences of Mancehester City in Premier League and during the summer the forward complained about the city of Manchester, saying that he would prefer to go back to Italy.

The city of Manchester has two of the best teams in the world, and with a spectacular start of the Premier League (surely the best league in the world), both teams have become candidates for the title. On one side, Manchester City has invested heavily into building its new team, and that seems to be bearing fruits: today they played Tottenham, and with spectacular four goals by Edin Dzeko, as

Samir Nasri ending all the fuss and buzz about his future after officially signing a four years deal with Manchester City for an amount reportedly around 24 million pound, joining his colleague, Gael Clichy, who already joined the Eastands earlier.

Speaking in his first interview as a City player, Nasri revealed that he had an input from Patrick Vierra, which convinced him in choosing Roberto Mancini's side, as the multimillionaire club have a huge project and have more chance to win more titles in the future.

Man City vs Swansea Goals 2011 4-0 Highlights Video Score is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter

Man City vs Swansea Goals 2011 4-0 Highlights Video Score is a post from Soccer Blogger. Follow Soccer Blogger on Twitter Man City vs Swansea 2011 ( Manchester City vs Swansea City 2011 Premiership) Final score and result:- Man City vs Swansea 4-0 ( Edin Dzeko, Sergio Aguero*2, David Silva) City of Manchester Stadium, 15th [.

In May of 1983, three clubs were relegated from the First Division. Brighton & Hove Albion were one, and the other two were Swansea City and Manchester City. Manchester City returned to the top flight a couple of seasons later but, for Swansea City, the intervening three decades have brought hardship and a couple of seasons during which even the league status of the club was thrown into doubt.

Internazionale have spent much of this week in Beijing, China preparing to defend their Italian Supercoppa tomorrow against city rivals AC Milan. But all the talk surrounding the club has been focused on potential transfers including some very big names.

The Sneijder Saga Continues.

A spell broken, or a mere blip? This may be the question that Manchester City supporters are asking themselves as they prepare themselves for a season which will see their club fall under the spotlight of the media to a hitherto unprecedented extent. They may have been challenging for a place in the Champions League and to land a major trophy for the first time in three and a half decades, but it felt last season as if manager Roberto Mancini was walking a perpetual tightrope, with the entire world watching them from below and a considerable number of them hoping that he would stumble and fall.

Some footballers are never satisfied. The first two that come to mind are Diego Maradona and Carlos Tevez. Maradona never could settle in one location despite his enormous skill. Carlos Tevez, while not as great, is similar in that he is never content.

Like the character of Jerry Seinfeld, Tevez seems to find (or create) problems where there are none.

Manchester City's controversial wantaway striker, Carlos Tevez, looks really set to leave the City of Manchester and re-join his former club, Corinthians, after latest reports revealed that the Eastlands have agreed terms with the Brazilian club.

Man City's manager, Roberto Mancini, revealed the agreement himself stating to the media that the deal looked to be in place and everything left now is a personal agreement between Corinthians and Tevez himself.

Liverpool joined the grand coalition attacking Manchester City's £400m sponsorship deal with Etihad, with managing director Ian Ayre saying yesterday that Uefa should investigate whether it is an illegal deal under its financial fair play regulations.
Speaking in Kuala Lumpur -- where on Monday Arsene Wenger accused City of "financial doping" -- Ayre suggested that the 10-year sponsorship agreement with Etihad may be an illegal 'related-party' deal, which financial fair play specifically outlaws.

Manchester City have confirmed that the City of Manchester Stadium, aka Eastlands, will be renamed the Etihad Stadium after signing a 10-year deal with the airline. The Abu Dhabi-based company is already the club's shirt sponsor.

"We are delighted to be expanding our relationship with Etihad Airways through this partnership agreement," said City chief executive Garry Cook.

Manchester City have confirmed that the City of Manchester Stadium will be renamed the Etihad Stadium after signing a 10-year deal with the airline. The Abu Dhabi-based company is already the club's shirt sponsor.

"We are delighted to be expanding our relationship with Etihad Airways through this partnership agreement," said City chief executive Garry Cook.

All of the optimism surrounding Chelsea after its hiring of manager Andre Villas-Boas appears to have subsided a bit after what appears to be a serious injury to a key player.

Midfielder Michael Essien reportedly ruptured knee ligaments in training and is set to miss a large part of the upcoming season, according to reports from England.

Manchester City have confirmed their City of Manchester Stadium will be renamed the Etihad Stadium with immediate effect with chief executive Garry Cook branding the deal as "one of the most important arrangements in the history of world football".

Two years ago, the fate of Manchester City changed when a big money group purchased the club. Fast forward to this upcoming season and all of the money that was spent in the transfer market has paid off as the club will be playing the in Champions League. The same might be happening in France with Paris Saint-Germain.

He is talented but hugely unlikeable and not just because of his stint at Arsenal. I couldn't understand a word that came out his mouth during the World Cup when he was helping diversify the BBC's panel of pundits. He puts in 110% for a few games a season but is largely lazy. I think that pretty much sums up Emmanuel Adebayor.

Despite having earned a fortune in recent years, the chances are that Emmanuel Adebayor is a man who almost certainly regrets his actions over the last few years, with the result of those actions leaving him in a state of frustrating limbo and without many clubs in the context of world football that would be particularly keen for him to join them, despite his undoubted talent.