There are many critics who love bickering about the downward spiral of Italian football but at least they have the equivalent of a glamorous Oscar night! Finally, Zlatan Ibrahimovic silenced his entire phone-book of haters last night and won the title of Serie A's 'Best Player in 2011′ while Edison Cavani's Udinese were announced 'Best Club'.

Time for the 2011 season grades to (finally) continue! Corey, Matty, and I have looked at the four major areas of the team - goalkeeping, defense, midfield, forwards - and assigned our grades on a 4.0 scale.

Unfortunately for the New England Revolution, we don't curve based on the rest of the league.

Pundits had been queuing up to say that Manchester City were at the top of a downward spiral. The suggestion was that after going out of the UEFA Champions League, courtesy of Napoli and Bayern Munich, and then losing to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, the wheels were starting to come off the great Manchester City roller coaster of 2011.

The fifteenth of May must have felt like a long time ago for the supporters of Farnborough FC on Tuesday night. On that particular day, Farnborough stood at the cusp of a place in the Blue Square Premier. Having finished in second place in the Blue Square South behind champions Braintree Town, they started their play-off final with home advantage and as the favourites to beat Ebbsfleet United.

Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina claims the club blocked him from making a £20million move to Arsenal in the summer of 2010.
Reina admits he was tempted to leave Merseyside after returning from Spain's victorious World Cup campaign last year to find the Reds in a downward spiral.
Manager Rafa Benitez had been sacked, while director Christian Purslow was desperately seeking new owners to replace Tom Hicks and George Gillett as the club struggled under a financial crisis.

Canadian author James Grossi writes for The Blizzard and at his blog, Partially Obstructed View.

As MLS grows towards its twentieth club in the coming years there is a risk of losing the balanced schedule. Comments by Commissioner Don Garber intimated that perhaps such a pure form would have to be set aside in order to accommodate the expanded league.

Five matches played tonight, full of high intensive SPANISH FOOTBALL action, as part of the scheduled mid-week Round 5 SPANISH LEAGUE calender which broke the idea that LA LIGA was a "two horse" race. Real Madrid suffered in their match & has entered into a worrying downward spiral, & Barcelona drew & suffered at Valencia.

One group of well paid men get beaten by another. We wail about the injustice of our well paid men not being paid as much as other groups of well paid men. Even though there's a group of men who aren't paid as much as our well paid men doing away just fine over there.
Such is the world of Scottish football, a sport dreamed of on the playing fields from Dumfries to Shetland but ripped asunder on the green, green grass of Slovenia and Switzerland.

Song and Vermaelen working tirelessly

It used to be a song sung frequently at Highbury and during most Arsenal games. Arsene Wenger's introduction to Arsenal Football Club ensures that the song would never be sung again. Even if it did, it was done in jest. The song typify the type of football that we used to play.

With 17 games already played, tonight's game against Chivas USA represents the beginning of the second half of the 34 game season for the Chicago Fire. A win and everything else going Chicago's way tonight would inconceivable put the Fire in the last qualification spot for the MLS Playoffs leading into Sunday, July 3rd.

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard believes it is only a matter of time before the club start challenging for trophies again.
The Reds have been on a downward spiral in recent seasons although the return of Kenny Dalglish to Anfield following the departure of Roy Hodgson picked things up last term.

After relegation in 2009, it appeared that Newcastle United was on a downward spiral, they had just lost their Premier League status and problems were rife in the board room. Premonitions of gloom circled around St. James' Park, ones that were only...
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After relegation in 2009, it appeared that Newcastle United was on a downward spiral, they had just lost their Premier League status and problems were rife in the board room. Premonitions of gloom circled around St. James' Park, ones that were only...
This is a content summary. Visit http://www.

Swindon Town's New (and Controversial) Boss

You couldn't ever accuse Swindon Town supporters of having little to talk about. The team has pogoed around the divisions in the last twenty years (they were present in the second ever Premier League season of 1993-4, and are at present the only former Premiership team to have been relegated to the lowest league tier).

Just a few days left before we say goodbye to the 2010/2011 Premier League season. Wenger held his final press conference of the season today ahead our last match of the season away to Fulham on Sunday.

Wenger said the usual things about us being very close this season and not being effective at the decisive moments.

Leo Krupnik and Maccabi Netanya all but lost their chances of a Europa League birth after losing to Bnei Yehuda over the weekend, while Bryan Gerzicich and Kiryat Shmona continued its downward spiral of late with a 2-0 loss at league leading Maccabi Haifa.

*The Galaxy face Sporting Kansas City at 7:30 p.m. at Home Depot Center (live on FSN), while Chivas USA travel to New York to face the Red Bulls at 5 p.m. Sunday (Galavision). The latter game is also on tape-delay at 5 p.m. on Prime.

*Apparently the next player decision Chivas USA may have to make (they are top of the MLS allocation order, remember, after deciding to pass on Benny Feilhaber) is whether to grab injury-prone, aging (I know he's only 28, but he's been around forever without actually doing much it seems) and little-used DaMarcus Beasley, who is apparently exploring returning to MLS after lo these many years picking up big paychecks (and little else of note) in Europe.

Join the guys as they talked about DC United's recent downward spiral, including the last win vs Toronto and the losses to Red Bull, The Dynamo, and the Open CUp loss to the Revolution. They guys also talk about the recent sever injuries to Steve Zakuani and David Ferreira and the rest of the MLS scoreboard.

Edin Dzeko's first Premier League goal was enough to give Manchester City all three point against Blackburn and to take control of the battle for a place in next season's Champions League.

City now have a four point gap on Spurs with four games to go. They two teams still have to play each other, but now City can afford to lose to Spurs and still keep control of the fourth and final Champions League position.

There is a sense of foreboding in the air in England, ahead of Saturday's European Championship qualifying match against Wales in Cardiff. It's not a sense of fear the players, at the very least, carry too much arrogance for fear to be a major factor where the English national football team is concerned but there is a sense, almost intangible, that something still isn't right in the England squad.

• Big fish, small pond. (The Best Eleven)
• Aussie pride at stake. (Avoiding The Drop)
• Football's downward spiral. (Left Back In The Changing Room)
• FIFA prez wannabe answers the questions. (Philosofooty)
• May or may not have been rigged. (The DA)
• Football pales.

Liverpool reportedly made an attempt to sign Stephen Ireland last summer but the move was blocked by Manchester City.
The 24-year-old playmaker subsequently joined Aston Villa in a deal which saw James Milner move in the opposite direction but was shipped out of Villa Park in January - moving to Newcastle on loan.

Photo by hey mr glen.

The euphoria of Tottenham's midweek win against AC Milan last week was shared across the United Kingdom as Tottenham became only the third English team to beat AC at the San Siro. The Tottenham performance was the archetypal European away-leg performance.

The message was directly aimed at the ATLETICO DE MADRID members & the fan base; a multitude who are very angry with the Clubs Directives & with some players who are not thinking in the Club but more about their future. Added to this the team has entered a downward spiral course that is putting in threat the only objective left of this season: to finish in the Champions League classification

Photo by wekkuzipp. Dalglish (pictured center).

Kenny Dalglish is known as King Kenny, and for good reason. Throughout his seventeen-year career, he played for only two clubs, and he had 559 appearances, with 230 goals scored between them. As a manager at Liverpool from 1985-1991, his teams won the FA cup twice and the league championship thrice.

Gameweek 24 is soon upon us and this is the gameweek to succeed. Fantasy Premier League has 6 teams playing double gameweek, so make sure you have as many players as you can from these 6 teams. Which are of course: Blackpool, Man Utd, Wigan, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Fulham.
This weeks all the hottest tips come from these teams.

In retrospect, Chelsea did a great disservice to Arsenal this weekend. Because if there is anyone in the league that can get away without doing the hard work, it is the North London side.

The Gunners probably felt that they just had to show up and Ipswich would cave in just as they did against Chelsea.

(Image source: Sporting-Heroes.net)
Tony Cascarino has been speaking to SkySports News today and has waded in with his opinion on Chelsea and believes we have serious problems. Have a read of his opinion and see if you agree:

"There are serious, serious problems at Chelsea Football Club, Not only are they not looking like retaining their Premier League title, they are looking like a team that has no chance of making the Champions Leagues spots.

Remember Asier del Horno? The guy who used to play for Chelsea, now owned by Valencia, where he's spent the bulk backpacking La Liga, living the dream of traveling the route from Chelsea's kajillions to the slightly broke-ish Valencia, all the way down to the "shoes and house are made from the same material: cardboard", Levante.