Jozy Altidore subbed on in the 78th minute for AZ in their rescheduled KNVB Beker (aka the KNVB Cup) game on Thursday. The game was played during the day to allow school children to attend, a compromise after the original game was abandoned due to a fan attacking AZ's goalkeeper and rescheduled to be played without fans present.

Imagine a bad breakup with someone you shouldn't have hooked up with in the first place, someone who seemed perfect for you but who belittled you to your friends, was a slob, didn't pay their half of the rent and utilities and criticized your sexual performance. Now imagine having to have that person spend one weekend a month at your house for the next two years.

Arsenal could be set to join Aston Villa and their Villa Park plan to introduce a safe-standing area by replicating the scheme at the Emirates.

Villa will put forward their suggestion at a meeting of the Premier League later this season. And if given the go-ahead, the club hope to have the safe standing zone in place in the Holte End by the 2013/14 season.

Manchester City and AC Milan in Carlos Tevez talks, What the back pages say

Manchester City have held fresh talks with Milan to try to reach a compromise that will allow the Premier League leaders to remove Carlos Tevez from their payroll.

View the full story here: The Mail

A news article on 2011-12-23 08:40:44 from: The Mail

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

By Chris Wright

Once again, the giant globe-spanning Illuminati conspiracy established to keep Liverpool from 'having their year' has come into effect and has demanded that the FA ban the club's most effective player this season for the next eight games and fined a week's wages just for openly and admittedly calling a black man a 'negro' a few times during a game of football.

By Chris Wright

Once again, the giant globe-spanning Illuminati conspiracy established to keep Liverpool from 'having their year' has come into effect and has demanded that the FA ban the club's most effective player this season for the next eight games and fined a week's wages just for openly and admittedly calling a black man a 'negro' a few times during a game of football.

Well Luis Suarez has been found guilty of Racism by the FA and banned for 8 matches and given a £40,000 fine. Liverpool have appealed this so he should be free to face Wigan in tonight's match.

"Today (Tuesday) is a very difficult and painful day for both me and my family. Thanks for all the support, I'll keep working!

Official Liverpool Statement
Liverpool Football Club is very surprised and disappointed with the decision of the Football Association Commission to find Luis Suarez guilty of the charges against him.
We look forward to the publication of the Commission's Judgment. We will study the detailed reasons of the Commission once they become available, but reserve our right to appeal or take any other course of action we feel appropriate with regards to this situation.

Luis Suárez: Liverpool statement

• Club are 'very surprised and disappointed' • Statement: 'Luis Suárez is innocent' Liverpool FC is very surprised and disappointed with the decision of the FA commission to find Luis Suárez guilty of the charges against him.

Liverpool Football Club have issued a statement about Luis Suarez
Liverpool Football Club and the Montgomery City Bus Company are is very surprised and disappointed with the decision of the Football Association commission to find Luis Suarez and James F. Blake guilty of the charges against them.

Update: Liverpool has responded. They're not happy.

LFC considers racism in any form to be unacceptable without compromise. It is our strong held belief, having gone over the facts of the case, that Luis Suarez did not commit any racist act. It is also our opinion that the accusation by this particular player was not credible certainly no more credible than his prior unfounded accusations.

Women's Professional Soccer is awaiting a decision from the US Soccer Federation regarding its future as a USSF sanctioned league. WPS now consists of five teams after the league terminated its relationship with magicJack and its controversial owner Dan Borislow. Borislow is currently engaged in litigation with WPS.

A chance to play at Anfield

IT'S that time of year again: the Christmas tree is up or at least threatening to be, the snow is falling or at least threatening to, and the streets are packed with frantic shoppers threatening to do things to the next person to get in their way as they search frantically for the ideal pressie for their loved ones, never quite sure if the loved one in question already has that particular one anyway.

If someone asked you about Carlo Ancelotti and his managerial style you would think of his time here in his first season winning the double, his time at AC Milan and the relationships he built with "his players".
Renowned for getting the maximum out of ageing players, Ancelotti was always one to stand up for the old guard and defend them to the hilt especially when he was here for two seasons.

Molde won their first ever title in their 100 year history this year in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's first year of management with the club.

However, it wasn't all plain sailing and Solskjaer has today admitted to stealing a line Sir Alex Ferguson used on Manchester United players in 1996.

Following the 6-3 defeat to Southampton and 5-0 defeat to Newcastle, Ferguson sat his players down and gave them a talking to.

You may have heard about this little disagreement between FIFA and the English FA over the use of poppies for England's friendly against Spain on Saturday. A compromise was finally reached, but that didn't stop Nike from taking things into its own power-tripping hands.

Nine England internationals will wear Nike boots embroidered with a poppy for the match.

I have a dream fellow Gooners. Well, in truth, I have several dreams. But I'll leave the one involves Robbie Savage's testicles and a set of vinegar soaked razor blades for another time. I dream that one day, international football will jump back into its bloody box and quit its persistent interruptions in the club season.

I have a dream fellow Gooners. Well, in truth, I have several dreams. But I'll leave the one involves Robbie Savage's testicles and a set of vinegar soaked razor blades for another time. I dream that one day, international football will jump back into its bloody box and quit its persistent interruptions in the club season.

England players and the FA are pleased that a compromise has been reached in their puppy row with FIFA ahead of Saturday's friendly with Spain. The FA wanted England players to have puppies attached to their shirts for the match, but this was deemed to be in breach of FIFA rules. After a brief impasse, [.

What are the odds an England player involves a poppy in a goal celebration? Derek McGovern's Bets of the Day

The easiest way to end the big poppy row would surely have been to bribe FIFA into letting England wear them. FIFA's heavy-handedness in banning the poppy from England shirts led to fears earlier this week that Saturday's England v Spain game would be called off.

Here are a few choice links from around the web for you to peruse while zoning out to the single greatest loop in the history of the Internet.

Chelsea FC Loan Roundup: 11/9/11
Via We Ain't Got No History

Kalas has arguably been the most impressive of the players Chelsea has sent out on loan to date.

Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish has called on his side to be more ruthless in front of goal this weekend when they take on a confident Norwich City.

Those looking at bookmaker free bets note how Villa have had an up and down campaign so far. They have only lost twice, but they find themselves down in 9th position having drawn six of their ten games so far.

Yesterday, the NBA owners and NBA players made progress toward ending the lockout by negotiating system details. However, the two sides avoided the main sticking point: the basketball related income (BRI) split. Today, that is exactly what will be discussed.

The players, who received 57% of the BRI in the last CBA, want at least 52% this time.

The signing of Ruiz gives us an extraoardinary array of attacking talent. It means we can field a combination of Zamora, Duff, Dempsey, Dembele and Ruiz, which you'd hope would suffice for our needs. They can't all play, but even if we see three or four of them, their attacking instincts need to be covered by someone to defend.

Serie A blog: Strike! Why are the Serie A stars refusing to play and is there an end in sight?

For the new season, MirrorFootball is teaming up with some of the blogosphere's best new writers to bring you even more great football reads every single day. Today it's our new Serie A blogger, footballitaliano.

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it. | Subscribe: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

This week we feature stories from Spain and the Premier League. You can listen to these and other stories on our weekly podcast and can find explanations of key vocabulary in bold below.

That thigh muscle is only ever going to distract us from your horror barnet for so long, Peter. Images: Getty Images/Zimbio.

Even though there are a few of us in the Kickette office who abuse peroxide frequently enough to warrant threats of service revocation from our hairdressers, we don't condone similar crimes by boys.

Liverpool have announced via their official website that Hull City's offer for Daniel Ayala has been accepted.
The Spaniard has been given permission to discuss personal terms with The Tigers, with Pearson likely to aim to conclude the deal before Saturday's trip to Ipswich Town.
City had initially bit £500,000 for Ayala and with Liverpool holding out for a seven figure sum, a compromise has now been reached to bring in a player who will challenge James Chester and Jack Hobbs for a starting place.

Since May Arsenal have inquired after a whole host of players. This may have been the result of the mistakes that were made last summer where we had a few stone wall targets when we failed to bring them in we were left reliant on youth or forced into a panic buy. One of these was Sebastian Squillaci.

Kenny Dalglish returns from his summer break this week ready, willing and able to sanction a £28million spending spree.
Kenny Dalglish's first deal will be for Blackpool star Charlie Adam, 25, who is on the verge of completing an £8m move to Anfield in the next 48 hours.
And then the Liverpool boss will switch his attention to Aston Villa's Stewart Downing, 26, who is desperate to be a Kop hero.

Aston Villa winger Stewart Downing is set to hand in a transfer request in an attempt to speed up his protracted move to Liverpool, according to reports in the The Mirror.
Downing has been the subject of keen interest from Liverpool, and the England winger is keen on joining Kenny Dalglish's team - although Aston Villa are reluctant to lose the former Middlesbrough winger after seeing Ashley Young join Manchester United.

David Ngog's proposed switch to Sunderland is being held up by the striker's wage demands.
Liverpool are happy to sell the Frenchman for a fee of around £4million but the Black Cats have so far been unable to agree personal terms with him.
The Wearside outfit insists they can't match the wages Ngog would earn if he remained at Anfield next season.

According to Steve Stammers in the Mirror this morning, Arsene Wenger is convinced that he will find a compromise with Samir Nasri and his agent this week, as they are locked in contract talks. It will be a fantastic boost to the Gunners and the fans if Wenger is successful in keeping the 23 year-old [.

Liverpool are struggling to reach a compromise pay-off agreement with Milan Jovanovic in order to move the Serbian international on.
Anderlecht and FC Brugge have offered Jovanovic, 29, a return to Belgian football but the former Standard Liege striker is not prepared to take a considerable cut on his £60,000-a-week wages.

Is Freddy ready this time? One-time prodigy Freddy Adu returns to the national team for the Gold Cup ((AFP/Getty Images).

The pool of international class American players is small.

The nation's best players often get lost in the mix at foreign clubs and their skills stagnate to the detriment of the national team.

Was it really two years ago? I am in the middle of rebuilding this site for a summer relaunch, and some of the new pages that will be available will be covering various running themes that we have gone into over the course of the last five years or so. I thought that I may as well put these up as posts as well, so that you can trace back some of longer running sagas.

Image via Flynet

There are few things we love more than a 'baller wedding. Cupcakes, naked torsos, pink champagne, Marco. Okay so there are more than a few things, but that's not the point here. Two of our favorites Juventus' Gianluigi Buffon and Atletico Madrid's Diego Forlan have both recently announced that they will be marrying their respective lady friends.

Jean-Michel Aulas speaks to the press (often), sells his club (always), can speak without compromise (sometimes), and on occasions be perfectly candid (rarely). It just happened now in a Lyon Capitale interview published today, and, as it addresses the concerns of many readers of this blog, I thought I should share the key points with you.

After plenty of indignation and threats things seem to have gone quiet over at the PSSI. Three weeks in to the new, unsanctioned, Liga Primer Indonesia and nothing much has happened.
Irfan Bachdim has been told he can't play for the national team. And that's about it.
No foreign players have been deported.

Time to sit up and take notice folks. The Daily Record has launched a campaign.
Fed up with Neil Doncaster's increasingly forlorn mission to build a brave new, decagonal Jerusalem in our green and pleasant land, the Record is calling for a 14 team SPL. It is, ladies and gentleman, the future of Scottish football as imagined by Jim Traynor.