Well it's just a preseason match and doesn't count for anything, but the Dynamo's 1-0 victory over the LA Galaxy does give us the ever so slightest bit of retribution after last season. Nathan Sturgis scored his second goal of the preseason as the Dynamo defense continued it's streak of clean sheets with their fifth straight shutout of the preseason.

Now before regular readers come and have a pop at me following on from my post the other day after the QPR game, I want to make a point that I am trying to make clear to you all.
My issue at the moment is and has been that we all know we aren't playing well, we know we are a couple of players short of winning the league, we know we are in a struggle for fourth place and have various issues with players at the moment.

Arsenal have had a most unusual season of highs and lows. After a rough start to the campaign, the ship seems to have steadied. Robin van Persie is on pace for a record setting season; his 19 goals so far are only one less than last year's 20 scored by Golden Boot winners Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov.

With four selections in the 2012 MLS Supplemental Draft the Chicago Fire Soccer Club acquired forward Evans Frimpong (9th overall), goalkeeper Carl Woszczynski (15th overall) midfielder Tony Walls (47th overall) and defender Justin Chavez (66th overall). They will join SuperDraft selections Lucky Mkosana and Hunter Jumper, Open Tryout winner Fabrizio Pittaluga and Re-Entry Draft selection Kheli Dube in attempting to win a roster spot with the Chicago Fire for the 2012 season.

Manchester City travel to the DW Stadium tonight where they will hope to take all three points against Wigan, however with City only picking up two points out their last twelve on offer, nothing is guaranteed.

MATCH FACTS

Thirty-nine per cent of the goals Wigan have scored have come from outside the penalty area, a Premier League high.

Yes, you can count on me

Yesterday's round of matches was good wasn't it. Yes, not entirely. Paul Scholes scored in his "comeback" but we all know what happened in the first game of his comeback and how he contributed to City scoring their goal. So no, he doesn't quite do a "Henry". An Emmanuel Frimpong led Wolverhampton Wanderers claimed point at Tottenham and it's dropped points for them (Spers, not Wolves).

One of the most pleasing aspects of Tottenham's play at the moment is the number of clean sheets being recorded. While new goalkeeper Brad Friedel has played his part in these statistics, our occasionally patched up defence deserves most of the praise so does it really need reinforcements this month?

Despite struggling to overtake David de Gea as Manchester United's outright first choice goalkeeper, Anders Lindegaard has the highest save percentage in the Premier League through 20 games.

The Dane, who caught people's attention when he kept 5 clean sheets in his first 5 Premier League starts has saved 84.

By Alan Duffy

'Tis been a fine season so far, with a new and rather rich kid on the block in the opulent form of Manchester City shaking things up at the top, a whole host of freakish results (see United's 8-2 win over Arsenal, City's 6-1 win over United etc), a Tottenham finally looking ready to make a serious title challenge and some impressive performances from the promoted sides.

By JOHN BOSCHINI

After flirting with Arsenal and Chelsea during the summer transfer window, Gary Cahill will likely be heading to Chelsea in January after a transfer fee was agreed upon with Bolton Wanderers.

The central defender has become an England national team regular and will look to stabilize a defense that will lose Alex in January and could be without John Terry for an extended period following a criminal racism charge.

Arsenal's summer signing Mikel Arteta has backed manager Arsene Wenger's belief that there was no lack of effort from the Gunners in their 1-1 draw at home to the Wolverhampton Wanderers yesterday.

The hosts, who led through an early goal from Gervinho, were punished when Steven Fletcher struck an equalizer right before the interval.

Newcastle started this season strongly, confounding critics and pundits in the process. When Andy Carroll left for better pastures with Liverpool, everyone predicted the end of the road for Newcastle. Alan Pardew had his detractors and now he is actually being considered to be Capello's successor as England manager.

The visit of Wolves over the last two seasons has produced two wins for the boys in red and white keeping clean sheets on both occasions. Although Wolves have some robust players McCarthy tries to get them to play football.

He is one of the few managers who I like listening to in post match interviews as he rarely complains about decisions and outcomes of games, choosing instead to inject some humour in his "call a spade a spade" approach to cross examination.

Maxi Rodriguez could be set for a landmark 50th league appearance for Liverpool if he is selected for the Boxing Day clash with Blackburn Rovers.
Here are more facts and stat ahead of the festive showdown courtesy of Ged Rea.
Head to head: (League only)
At Anfield: Liverpool 38 wins, Blackburn 9 wins, 16 Draws.

Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish admits Blackburn striker Ayegbeni Yakubu poses a threat at Anfield tomorrow, but is confident his in-form defence will keep the Nigerian quiet.
Rovers' summer signing from Everton has 10 Barclays Premier League goals - including four in one match against Swansea three weeks ago - this season.

Football Focus pundit Garth Crooks has praised the performances of Martin Skrtel in light of the towering centre-half's superb individual effort at the weekend.
The Slovakian international scored Liverpool's second goal during the 2-0 win against Aston Villa and the 27-year-old has been one of Kenny Dalglish's most consistent performers.

Downing returns to Villa...
Liverpool make their way down to the Midlands on Sunday for a game against Alex McLeish's Aston Villa. Villa at the moment appear to be struggling to score goals and with Liverpool creating chances but perhaps not converting as many as they should be, this could be an interesting fixture.

Ever since the departure of Fabregas and the long-term injury to Wilshire, I have been trying to figure out how the ‘New Arsenal' will play this season. For quite a while I was convinced Arsène wanted to continue with his 4-2-3-1 formation of the previous seasons, and as such, he was trying to get Ramsey to play in the Fabregas position/role, with Song in the more traditional DM role and Arteta in the box-to-box ‘Wilshere' role which is effectively a second DM (most of the times).

Ever since the departure of Fabregas and the long-term injury to Wilshire, I have been trying to figure out how the ‘New Arsenal' will play this season. For quite a while I was convinced Arsène wanted to continue with his 4-2-3-1 formation of the previous seasons, and as such, he was trying to get Ramsey to play in the Fabregas position/role, with Song in the more traditional DM role and Arteta in the box-to-box ‘Wilshere' role which is effectively a second DM (most of the times).

Four New England-based college players will be making the trek to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. for the 2012 MLS Player Combine, which will run from Jan. 6-10, 2012.

The UConn duo of defender Nick Blake and forward Tony Cascio, as well as Dartmouth forward Luckymore Mkosana and Providence goalkeeper Jhojan Obando, are among 52 college seniors that will attempt to improve their SuperDraft stock during the five-day showcase, which will host a number of MLS coaches, general managers and scouts all hoping to get a glimpse of the country's best college-based talent.

Martin Jol claims that Jay Spearing's challenge on Moussa Dembele could have broken the Fulham star's ankle.
The Liverpool midfielder was sent off for the second-half tackle, which won the ball but caught the Belgian's leg strongly when he followed through.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, Jol said: "I will be honest.

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Editor's note: At the end of the 2010 season, we posted a series of season reviews of every Philadelphia Union player. Over the next several weeks PSP continues with a review of the 2011 season.

Faryd Mondragon looked like the answer in 2011.

Great weekend for the believers in young Australian football players, attacking players.
Bernie Ibini, Mustafa Amini, Demi Petratos, Mate Dugandzic just some of the young Aussies hitting the net - and three of them are Under 20.
Laugh: Robbie Slater in his column on Sunday discussed how to beat the Roar - and he mentioned how Sydney would miss THE PACE of Mark Bridge.

Liverpool head to Fulham on Monday knowing a win would equal a club record of away successes.
In all competitions it is six victories in succession away from home - a win at Craven Cottage will equal the club record of seven set between December 1981 - February 1982 and again in January - March 1988.

Alexis scores against Rayo (Photo: REUTERS/Albert Gea)

Barcelona returned to their winning ways on Tuesday night with a four-goal thrashing of La Liga minnows Rayo Vallecano at the Camp Nou.

The word echoing through the stadium: maravilla.

Between cheers for David "Mara" Villa, Alexis Sanchez, "el niño maravilla" of Chile, and the sheer majesty of Messi's highlight-reel goal, one couldn't help but marvel.

Despite under-performing, overpriced summer signings; disappointing home draws; injuries to Gerrard and Carra; goalscoring problems, and a fatal inability to beat the 'lesser' teams, it's a great time to be a fan of Liverpool FC, and there are plenty of reasons to be positive at the moment.

The in-thing at the moment, aside from rightly praising Robin van Persie for being a goalscoring machine, is to praise our new-found solidity at the back. While results have been good recently, I'd say it's more down to the form of our attack than any miracles happening in defence.

Looking at our form since the defeat at Spurs, we've only actually managed three clean sheets in ten games, hardly awe-inspiring, but victories have covered this up.

Liverpool v Manchester City: five things we learned | Daniel Taylor

Bill Shankly's was a great quote. Truly great, in fact. But not true. 1) Bill Shankly got it wrong It isn't more important than life or death. Craig Bellamy was so distraught about Gary Speed's death there were probably parts of the day when he felt he could barely function, let alone play a key match against his former club.

Auxerre vs. Olympique Lyonnais,

Matchday 15, Ligue 1

"If you're going to do things differently, you might as well be bad at them. "

This message is what team Lyonnais seems to be reading every morning for the past two months. Of course, nobody would have expected them to continue their fine form of the first twelve games throughout the rest of the season.

In-demand Bolton defender Gary Cahill has refused to get drawn into the speculation about his future but has indicated that Chelsea are the front-runners to sign him due to how to the connection he has with captain John Terry.

Cahill has partnered Terry on multiple occasions in the heart of England's defense and the result has usually been a clean sheet.

Jamie Carragher was on the bench against Chelsea after recovering from a recent injury, and many fans will probably be expecting him to be restored to the starting line-up sooner rather than later. However, Liverpool legend Gary Gillespie has suggested that Kenny Dalglish may stick with the Daniel Agger-martin Skrtel partnership.

FALL RIVER, Mass. The Revolution Youth Academy remained perfect (4-0-0) on the weekend after their squads claimed 3-2 and 2-0 wins over the New York Cosmos Sunday at BMC Durfee High School during the first weekend of the 2011-12 U.S. Soccer Development Academy season.

The U-18s opened Sunday's action with an aggressive attack against the Cosmos that featured goals from Dominik Machado (4′) and Chandler Burnham (9′) to give the Revs an immediate two goal cushion inside of 10 minutes.

Chelsea v Liverpool: five things we learned | Dominic Fifield

André Villas-Boas is under increasing pressure, while big money signings are still struggling to settle at both clubs 1 André Villas-Boas is already a manager under pressure It was arguable that, given the summer transfer outlay, Kenny Dalglish should actually have edged into this fixture as the manager under greater scrutiny, though in ensuring he has now gone 12 matches unbeaten against Chelsea while in charge of Liverpool, he left the focus fixed on André Villas-Boas.

Arsenal will today face Norwich City hoping to keep their unbeaten run and positive defensive record going. Speaking to Arsenal Player ahead of the game, centre-back Thomas Vermaelen confessed that clean sheets are important for the ...

The official Liverpool FC website recently ran a poll asking fans to vote on the club's greatest ever goalkeeper. Given the fact many modern fans are seemingly incapable of considering things objectively, or within the proper historical context, it came as no surprise that Pepe Reina was voted in at no 1, ahead of the likes of Ray Clemence and Bruce Grobbelaar, who won 11 league titles and 4 European Cups between them.

United travel to Wales this weekend to take on Swansea, and although bookmakers make them long odds-on at a top priced 1.53 it promises to be a much tougher game than the odds suggest.

Swansea have conceded just one goal on home soil this season, fewer than any other Premier League team on their own ground, and are now on an unbeaten run of 13 (won 9, drawn four).

11am ET, live in the US on FSC
Last four head-to-head:
1-0 Liverpool (a) 02.06.11
2-0 Liverpool (h) 11.07.10
0-2 Chelsea (h) 05.02.10
0-2 Chelsea (a) 10.04.09
Last three matches:
Liverpool: 0-0 Swansea (h); 2-0 West Brom (a); 2-1 Stoke (a)
Chelsea: 1-0 Blackburn (a); 1-1 Genk (a); 3-5 Arsenal (h)
Goalscorers (league):
Liverpool: Suarez 4; Adam, Carroll 2; Bellamy, Gerrard, Henderson, Skrtel 1
Chelsea: Lampard 6; Sturridge 4; Ramires, Terry 3; Mata, Torres 2; Anelka, Boswinga, Drogba, Malouda 1
Referee: Martin Atkinson
Evidently the Premier League wasn't that upset with Atkinson sending off Rodwell last month or he wouldn't have gotten another Liverpool game so soon.

Liverpool did the league double over Chelsea last season and Lucas Leiva was an integral part of the midfield machine that did a great job of helping the back four keep two clean sheets. Lucas is relishing the prospect of facing former players Raul Meireles and Fernando Torres at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, but he's acutely aware of the threat that they pose.

We are only four days from the culmination of the 2011 season and I don't know about all of you, but I'm ready. Alas, we must be patient and in an attempt to give you something to focus on ahead of the game, I figured it would be good to offer up my analysis of the two teams and who I see having the advantage, at least on paper.

Woodbury natives Eric Miller and Brent Kallman hope to push Missouri Valley Conference Champion Creighton University one step past their #2 national ranking and #2 seed as the D1 Men's NCAA Tournament opens this weekend. The Blue Jays are 18-2-0 on the season turning in an astounding 16 clean sheets in 20 matches, national-best .