The Tevez-Pato "will he? won't he" questions ricocheted every which way this January as the musical chairs transfers song played at AC Milan, but at the end everyone retook their own chairs. Boring. Perhaps they were dating Berlusconi's daughter, or were on £200,000 a week slave wages that no one else could match, but whatever the reason, that anti-climax will be followed up by a busy February and early March.

Stephen Ireland wouldn't dare forget to bring his snakeskin pants to Ronaldinho's next pyjama party...would he?

If you think this is good, just wait.

It gets better.

Saturday

- We offered our steamiest congrats to Barcelona's Victor Valdes, who received the Catalan Athlete of the year award.

Can we ever love the Europa League? Two great cups have merged into a dud

It's Thursday, so it must be the Europa League. Hapoel Tel Aviv v Legia Warsaw. AZ Alkmaar v FC Metalist Kharkiv. Birmingham v NK Maribor. Get ready to switch TV channels. Does anybody fancy watching EastEnders?

Some Quick Thoughts on Last Night's Champions League Results:
. Borussia Dortmund 1 - Arsenal 1 It's hard to recall the glory days of Thierry Henry and Patrick Viera's Arsenal: wonderful to watch but with a strong, rock-solid core. Today's Arsenal strike me as little wimpy boys.

Local Aussie journos are wetting themselves over the upcoming Melbourne Victory v Sydney FC clash and are starting to twitter themselves into a frenzy.
They want Brett Emerton and Harry Kewell to play for their respective clubs rather than for Australia, in Canberra, against Malaysia.
Of course the Malaysia game is a walk in the park and a friendly at that - but it is four days before the World Cup clash with Oman.

Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll illustrate perils of a striker's lot | Paul Hayward

Spain and England left out £85m of misfiring striking talent this week but when a centre-forward is on song it lifts the entire team As any Middlesbrough fan will tell you – just mention Afonso Alves or Massimo Maccarone as prompts – buying the wrong striker is a peculiarly calamitous act that invites external derision and internal angst.

So far, Copa America has been a dud. Only a little more than 1 goal per game has been the average. It`s not just the lack of goals making for a dissappointing show so far, also, it is the lack of innovative and skilled play, which has been associated with South American Soccer for decades, that is making the viewing experience surprisingly stale.

As the transfer rumour season gets under way, the press is busy slaughtering us for our lack of activity.
Well let's look at what has happened so far.

Liverpool have spent £20M on an England u-21 international, a player who is not as good as either Wilshere or Ramsey, so what did they expect us to do, spend money for the sake of spending money?

There's been a littany of problems in so many American sports lately. College football has an annual crisis of players, coaches and boosters scheming the system, Ohio State University being the latest. College basketball has its own share of problems as witnessed earlier in the year when the University of Connecticut got busted for recruiting violations only to bounce back and win the national championship a month later.

Ferguson tiene dudas de cómo afrontar ante el Barça el partido que les puede dar su cuarta Liga de Campeones. Es por ello que el técnico del United reconoció haber llamado a su homólogo en el banquillo del Madrid, para pedirle consejos de cómo jugar ante el Barça, ya que el portugués es el hombre que más se ha enfrentado a los culés esta temporada.

FC Dallas was able to extend their shutout streak to 399 minutes. (Getty Images)

The end of the world didn't come this weekend which was nice but at the same time it also brought us some very tight games in week 10. In all, week 10 in Major League Soccer went nearly as I thought it would on Friday.

Brisbane played their best football so far. ran rings around a slow Gold Coast. You know a team is in trouble when they are 1-0 in 2 minutes and their centre backs start arguing within 10 minutes. The referee should have given more protection to Brisbane's skills.
Pity Miron went thuggish.

With most Euro-leagues on winter break, MLS in the depths of its off-season, and no international action to speak of, the past month has been predictably slow. That's not to say that all has been quiet on the American soccer front, but as we move into January, drafts, transfer windows, and friendlies get the news flowing once again.