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Fulham v Liverpool
English Premier League
Craven Cottage
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Kick-off: 1500 GMT

Three days after their Carling Cup exit to Arsenal, Liverpool return to the capital on the back of five defeats from their last six league and cup games.

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Though it was against lower opposition, you have to be impressed by Gabriel Obertan's performance yesterday at Oakwell. He has pace, a lot of it, and you could not question his other areas of his game such as his dribbling or his passing ability.

It was very impressive considering that he just come back from a long lay-off in the sidelines.

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tonight's match really is a great opportunity for slick rick.

What I love about cup games is that you really get to see where the priorities lie for a manager depending on the squad that hits the field. You also get to see the depth of a squad, (if indeed there is any FULHAM). For me personally, I really enjoy watching cup competitions because despite the economic pedestal the league and top-tier european competition look down loftily from, the cup competitions have a certain 'je nais sais quois' that is emblematic of what football is really all about.

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Here's another monthly look at what at what the stats tell us about Chelsea's progress: this time with revelations about Lampard's scoring rate, Chelsea's deceptively good defence and a continuing reliance on Drogba. My obsession with football stats continues...
At this rate Lampard won't score 20
Such is the quality of Frank Lampard that scoring just one goal in 12 games was a crisis.

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Here's another monthly look at what at what the stats tell us about Chelsea's progress: this time with revelations about Lampard's scoring rate, Chelsea's deceptively good defence and a continuing reliance on Drogba. My obsession with football stats continues...
At this rate Lampard won't score 20
Such is the quality of Frank Lampard that scoring just one goal in 12 games was a crisis.

Click to continue reading...

Last week's Thai FA Cup final between Thai Port and BEC Tero marked a watershed in Thai football. It brought together the new look TPL, rebranded and emphasizing community, against the old style Thai football. Corporate with no community backing.
BEC Tero are backed by a Thai TV station and have had their moment of glory in the recent past but even a commercial tie up with the Arsenal isn't enough to pull in the punters. Click to continue reading...

Less than a month ago, we approached a Premiership game away at Fulham with the goalkeeping position in disarray. Almunia had been struck down for over a week with a chest infection, and with Fabianski also out with a long term injury, young Mannone had been thrown into a Champions League game in Liege.

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Boro have a break from league action this Saturday as the FA Cup campaign starts against Chelmsford City. It was only a few months ago that Boro faced Chelmsford in a pre-season friendly where Charlie Griffin and Chris Beardsley both scored Boro won by 2-1.

Chelmsford find themselves in 11th place in Conference South despite winning 3 of their last 5 league games.

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You Don't have to be Einstein to figure the MLS Playoff picture out, but it wouldn't hurt. Seriously, I have been mulling over the various scenarios that will still allow Real Salt Lake to make the playoffs and it makes my head hurt. As I write this there are several tiebreaker scenarios most involving the full-moon, crop-circles and the Mayan calendar predicting the end-of-the-world in 2012 but the simplest way for RSL to make the playoffs is for them to beat the Colorado Rapids in the final leg of the Rocky Mountain Cup on Saturday night and Toronto FC, New England, D.

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Not as easy a game as many would have you believe.

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The two protagonists of the last meeting between these clubs Arsenal's Eduardo and Birmingham defender Martin Taylor both miss out through injury.

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The suspension of Josh Wicks came down as fairly hefty (5 Open Cup games, play in don't count). Considering what the USSF determined were his total offenses it seems fair. He was violent when he stomped on Fredy Montero, berated an official and honestly I won't miss him in next year's tourney. I will [. Click to continue reading...

Sir Alex Ferguson has confirmed that Ben Foster will remain our first choice keeper in the absence of Edwin Van der Sar, despite Tomasz Kuszczak being chosen for our cup games against Wolves and Wolfsburg.

"Tomasz Kuszczak produced a very good performance against Wolves last week and we felt he deserved to play another game," Ferguson said.

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"I am going to have lots of options but it is a good problem to have," he said.

"We have good players playing well and good players still to come back. Now it is down to me to make sure I pick the right options for the right opposition."

>>Mark Hughes.

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Tim Howard played a blinder in his first season at United, so much so, he was named PFA Keeper of the Year. It is important to note he fought off competition from Jens Lehmann who had just enjoyed an unbeaten season with Arsenal and Chelsea's Carlo Cudicini, who both conceded fewer goals than him.

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Mark Hughes reflected following the Fulham victory on the importance of our new found success from set pieces:

"We have not done badly this season - in the early part of last year we did not look a threat from set plays. In games so far we look like a team that can now.
"We have told the players where we want the ball delivered and how they need to be a bit more dynamic in the box and make sure they get first contact.

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We have a lot of things going on tonight with possible debuts, Americans Abroad showdowns, cup games and a big league tilt in Sweden. As you can see some of these have begun. I will be making some updates to try and keep track of everything for you. Here's the slate, league contests first:Serie AUdinese v AC Milan (Oguchi Onyewu)AllsvenskanÖrebro (Alejandro Bedoya) v IFK GothenburgCarling Click to continue reading...

What Happened to the Traditional Scoreboard?

Tonight I made the short trip from my house to watch Nottingham Forest v Blackburn in one of the Carling Cup games many had identified to have the potential for a cup upset, the game itself was patchy with one of two niggly injury periods of two or three minutes, during one of these breaks in play I looked up to check the time and confirm my count of the score ( I made it 0-0 after 20 minutes).

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2:45pm, live in the US on espn360.com. Supposedly, ESPN360 is the only US outlet. My internet provider doesn't get it. Most people I know don't get it. Super.
Setanta has US rights for Carling Cup too, but they're not showing a Tuesday game. Hopefully they'll be a stream somewhere.
Last 3 matches:
Liverpool: 3-2 West Ham (a); 1-0 Debrecen (h); 4-0 Burnley (h)
Leeds: 4-1 Gillingham (h); 0-0 Southend (a); 2-0 Stockport (h)
Referee: Alan Wiley
Guess at a squad:
Cavalieri
Degen Skrtel Kyrgiakos Aurelio
Spearing Mascherano
Babel Voronin Riera
Ngog
Good luck guessing the right mix of reserves, youngsters, and senior players. Click to continue reading...

Bad news for Tottenham fans - Gareth Bale has returned to action in a closed doors friendly between QPR and Spurs. The defender completed 90 minutes of action as Tottenham ran out 3-2 winners over the Championship club.

While Bale is a highly rated left back in the Premier League, his return comes as a catch-22 for Spurs fans due to the infamous Gareth Bale curse.

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Before I begin, a confession.
I did not go to the game on Tuesday against Millwall. There were a variety of reasons : I am still protesting the clubs disgraceful decision to remove the two free Cup games from my season ticket some 12 years ago, I am trying to save a bit of money at present and it was the last in the series of Desperate Romantics with which I am rather taken (that's a joke before anyone firebombs my house). Click to continue reading...

I have been a West Ham supporter for the best part of 30 years and have seen many ups and downs over that time. I have had a season ticket for the past four years and love being able to go and see the team I love every other week. It is a great feeling to know you have a ticket for every league game.

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The Weekend Roundup is back early because QoS got an early start to the season with Cup games the last two weekends
Colorado Rapids - After the loss to Columbus, Colorado has fallen into a tie with Chivas for 4th place in the West and with Toronto for 7th place overall. Due to the games in hand the Rapids have the edge over Toronto and DC for the next-to-last playoff spot. Click to continue reading...

The August FIFA Rankings were released on Wednesday, with the United States improving by eight points to stay in 12th-place. The US played six Gold Cup games during the rankings period, finishing second in the competition. Gold Cup winners Mexico improved three places to 30th. Top Twenty Click to continue reading...

Anyone who saw the results or headlines from the two preseason Emirates Cup games will no doubt be impressed with the 17 year old Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere. He was easily Man Of The Match in both games, including scoring 2 against Rangers, the second of which was a glorious rising drive on the half-volley into the top corner. Click to continue reading...

BBC has confirmed that it will be streaming games from the Northern Ireland Milk Cup LIVE on its website. In what sounds like a pretty cool program called BBC Blast, young camera operators, directors and producers will be given the opportunity to hone their skills by doing a live event - in this case, Milk Cup games - much to the benefit of the rest of us who want to watch. Click to continue reading...

It was bound to happen eventually, but not like this.

The U.S. men's national team's unbeaten streak against Mexico on American soil began modestly enough back in 2000, when Mexico fielded a patchwork team consisting of the players from just two Mexican league teams. Nobody seemed to care though as the American rattled off a 3-0 victory.

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The guy that most of the Premiership teams want in their squad has a typical life story. When foreigners came flooding Primera he was forced to move to Almeria, while Real were spending big money on doubtful players.

He got his chance when Almeria had no other solutions and simply exploded.

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Adrian Hanauer isn't happy about the site of the Open Cup Final.
It would be easy to just say "The USSF is idiots", hit Post Now, and wait for the "This is your best blog post EVER!" comments.
But, just for fun, let's try to look at it from the Fed's point of view, if that's possible. Click to continue reading...

Football is the game we all love and they don't call it ‘The Beautiful Game' for nothing. Football governing bodies are calling for all the participants to respect the referees and to respect the competitions by not fielding weakened teams in Cup games, but in this article we would like to voice our support to Respect The Fans Campaign.

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Both Kartik Krishnaiyer and I will be reporting from the Gold Cup games in Miami tonight featuring Canada against Costa Rica, and El Salvador versus Jamaica. Kartik will be in the press box while I'll be in the stands.

Be sure to follow MLS Talk on Twitter for tweets, pictures and audio from the games tonight.

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With J Hutcherson -- Big game Wednesday Gold Cup style, and rather than attempting some wonders of prognostication, let's look at USA - Honduras for what it is. The game that decides who wins Group B. Going through the rosters and trying to predict match-ups is right up there with trying to scout US Open Cup games. Click to continue reading...

I have never really understood why CONCACAF has to play the Gold Cup every two years. But then I take a look at Mexico's possible itinerary, and it become$ abundantly clear. I hope Mexico's players have frequent flier accounts. If they somehow make it the Gold Cup final later this month at the Meadowlands, they will have played in 6 venues, made 5 flights, crossed over three time zones, and traveled a total of 5036 miles (as the golden goose flies). Click to continue reading...

On this 4th of July weekend Houston comes into KC hoping to improve on their goalless effort from last weekend against one of the worst defenses in the league (LA's), while KC, tries to make it 2 wins in a row in the league after a horrible Superliga performance.

KC will be missing defensive leader and captain Jimmy Conrad, as well as midfielders Davy Arnaud and Roger Espinoza due to Gold Cup call ups, while Kevin Souter will not be available due to injury.

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