The appetite for commentary on the farce in Paris still seems strong, and I thought Arsene Wenger had a very wise take on the entire situation today. Wenger is, obviously, a French supporter and very close with Henry. In fairness to the Irish fans, the world football community, and for the sake of Henry, he called for the game to be replayed.

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Morning all, welcome to another blog.
FP should start with a shout out to The West's Shayne Hope. For those who haven't caught the news this morning, Ireland were robbed of a spot in the World Cup after Thierry Henry used a blatant handball to help bail out France.
Checking out SH's twitter this morning gave FP a bit of a laugh: "Maradona's was the Hand of God - so Thierry Henry's must be the Hand of Frog, right? Click to continue reading...

A sharpshooting contest which Jozy Altidore wins with some sweet stuff. Steve Cherundolo is hard done by poor service in the end. The clip shows Altidore really relaxed with his infectious personality coming through.

The US meets Slovakia for the first time. Bob Bradley has some serious questions up front with Charlie Davies out.

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Elizabeth Lambert's name is now synonymous with violent play. What happened to Joe Pimentel (pictured here, giving Lambert the one yellow card he issued)? The center referee basically folded his arms and did nothing through that match - was he suspended, pending some sort of inquiry and evaluation? Nope - He went on to referee a men's game a few days later: the UCLA/Washington PAC-10 championship match, in fact. Click to continue reading...

3 wins, 2 draws and 1 defeat for Bundesliga clubs in Europe this week. The good news is that five out of six have it all in their own hands to progress to the next round. The odd club out is of course Hertha B... no wait.

Bayern Munich 0-2 Bordeaux. Bayern wanted a football teacher and got a textbook case of how little possession stats tell you about the outcome of a football match.

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I think it is fairly safe to say things are not going to plan at Real Madrid's Santiago Bernabeu. After a summer of unprecedented spending they were supposed to challenge for honours on all fronts and regain their place at the top of La Liga from Barcelona.

In all fairness they're only a point behind Barca but the Real hieracrhcy are known for being a bit trigger happy when it comes to managers.

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Arsenal 3 (Van Persie 42, 60, Fabregas 43) Tottenham 0
(Premiership)

A victory that was as satisfying as it was ultimately comfortable guaranteed that the 'noughties' would be completed without a single Spurs victory over Arsenal in the league, a run now stretching to an impressive twenty games.

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To read Part I in this series, please click here.
To read Part II.
Yes, this again. Soccer hooliganism is coming to the USA. Check that: it's already here.
In fairness, the "analysis" is a bit different this time. Whereas in the past hooliganism was all about things that were (supposedly) going on in Major League Soccer, it is now all about stateside supporters groups of English teams. Click to continue reading...

I remember when top clubs began blooding youngsters and squad players en masses in the League Cup it had always been a competition for a little rotation, but the criticism ran wild when the likes of us and United played entirely different teams from the one that ran out at the weekend.

These days, it is noticeable how different the media message is.

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There has been a lot of discussion recently over the individual merits of Fernando Torres and Wayne Rooney. Both have had great starts to the new season, and both are vitally important to their respective clubs...but who is the better player? It's a tough question to answer objectively, but the following in-depth, objective analysis shows quite clearly that Torres is the more consistently effective performer. Click to continue reading...

A quick Sunday round-up for you.

Arsenal players got themselves on the scoresheet yesterday for their respective countries. Cesc scored a lovely goal against Armenia, Philippe Senderos scored two excellent headers against Luxembourg and William Gallas got one for France as Spain, Switzerland and France all won.

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With Paulo Guerrero and Mladen Petric sustaining long term injuries, Hamburg are facing a forward crisis of epic proportion. The weight of a team that is tied on points for the league falls on the shoulders on young Swede Marcus Berg. No matter who Labbadia might sign, bring up from the reserves or shift, Berg is still the only proven striker the Dinosaurs have.

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Michael Owen had been one of the most lethal strikers in Europe when he was at his peak but numerous injuries and some bad career choices have prevented them from reaching his full potential. He, nevertheless, amassed 89 England caps and scored 40 goals (Owen goals), just nine less than Sir Bobby Charlton, who is England's top scorer of all times.

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SO here we are – one day before the big game (aren't they all big?) against North Queensland Fury.
Quite a bit to get through today, so without further ado...
Firstly, straight to Glory coach Dave Mitchell's presser yesterday.
Quite a bit was happening, firstly the news that Perth Glory's Socceroo trio were not included in the national team for the upcoming games filtered to the Perth jounros. Click to continue reading...

Image by footyfactor.com

What happens when Sepp Blatter and his cronies see millions of dollars and plenty of prestige in danger of disappearing? They change the system.

That's the conclusion drawn by many after FIFA last night announced they were altering their planned World Cup 2010 qualification play-offs system to seed teams based on their FIFA world rankings, a decision which clearly favours the traditionally strong nations.

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If Wayne Rooney dived in the world cup final and was awarded a penalty that led directly to England winning the world, would he be targeted and denigrated by the press and fans the next day, just like Eduardo was after the Celtic game? Arsene Wenger doesn't think so, and I think he's right.
In a recent interview, Wenger said:
"England are in the World Cup and if Rooney does that [Dives] in the last minute of the game and England win the World Cup, do you really think Rooney will be slaughtered the next day? Click to continue reading...

Once again, it pains me to add Liverpool players to this series, but in the interests of fairness, it has to be done, and Steven Gerrard was quite rightly booked for this blatant piece of play-acting against Chelsea.
Quite why such a brilliant player like Gerrard has to dive is completely beyond me. Click to continue reading...

Sunday's match between Bayer Leverkusen and Werder Bremen ended in a scoreless draw, but the sell-out crowd of 30,200 the first sell out for Bayer's newly expanded BayArena still went home happy thanks to a belly full of free food and beer.

The complimentary grub and happy juice wasn't some goodwill gesture from the club, though this is the serious business of football, after all no, it was the result of the club's brand new electronic payment system crapping out just before game time.

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Most artists with 25+ years of performing experience behind them can put on a great show comprised of their biggest hits, some songs off the new album, and a few obscurities for the hardcore fans. Play them well, and everybody walks out with a smile on their face, having sung along with every note.

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"The reality wasn't exactly what was described and sold to me," he said. "In fairness, we were able to go into the transfer market, but there seemed a focus that players had to be sold, and I realised that maybe the resources weren't in place that I thought."
"If you are single-minded, you have to work purposefully," he reflected, "and if you get to a point where it is untenable and not manageable, then you make the decision to walk away.

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When confronted with the accusation that she'd threatened to kill the line judge, echoing John McEnroe's mantra of complaint, Serena Williams looked at the officials and asked "Are you serious?"
Williams had lost her cool, that much is indisputable. This happens to many of the best athletes when things aren't going as they'd hoped and planned. Click to continue reading...

Well I'm a bit gutted that Simon Bird beat me to it but in fairness he's got more time for this sort of thing and he gets paid for it. However, despite not always agreeing with what he has to say, he's got this article spot-on in my opinion. I would hate to think that [...] Click to continue reading...

Why is it whenever you have the first holiday you've been able to take in months, you always get ill? I know I said I'd be back yesterday, but a hefty fever left me bed-ridden, and will probably curtail today's blog too. Fortunately, there is not too much to cover, so I'll break it down into sections:

The aftermath of the Wenger chanting

I have received a response from United to an email I sent them after the game.

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Morning, it's a busy one so let's crack right into it.

Arsene's pre-match press conference took place yesterday instead of the Friday before a game but as usual he had plenty to say. Starting with injuries ahead of the weekend's game he said Andrei Arshavin would miss at least 3 games due to a recurrence of his groin injury.

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Europeam heavyweights and 1998 World Cup champions France have a battle on their hands if they want to qualify for the tournament in South Africa next summer. They drew with Group Seven leaders Serbia on Wednesday night leaving them four points off the Serbians with just two games left. It now seems almost certain they will have to face a play-off tie to qualify for the tournament but Barcelona striker thierry Henry is confident his national side have what it takes to get them to South Africa in 2010.

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By Gareth Freeman

United's own start to the season may not have been as impressive as it could have been. Granted they've won three out of four but the loss to Burnley was as big a shock as we've had all season and the manner in which they defeated Arsenal was not as convincing as perhaps it could have been.

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I hate Interlulls.

Seriously, they agitate me to the point where I think it's a good idea to go out on a Sunday night and drink beer until 2am. And what good does that do you? Monday is still Monday, the Interlull is still the Interlull and you have to face it hungover.

The other thing is that one of my neighbours is right in the middle of some serious construction work.

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Ryan Babel had been touted as one of the most exciting prospects in Europe when he made a switch from Ajax to Liverpool but his career has since taken the wrong turn. The player himself has to take part of the blame for this because he never really repeat the performances from his time at Ajax, but in all fairness I have to say Rafa Benitez never really gave him a real chance to shine.

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*written by Director / Player Davidinho*
Going into the season, the Markham Soccer Club introduced a radical playoff format, known by some as a "three tiered system". Basically, the eighteen league teams in play would be divided into three groups of 6, based on season record, as follows:
Group A: Teams ranked 1 - 6
Group B: Teams ranked 7 - 12
Group C: Teams ranked 13 - 18
Each group would engage in a respective playoffs, resulting in the emergence of three eventual Group Winners. Click to continue reading...

In a moment of astonishingly ill-advised candour, UEFA President Michel Platini has offered a disturbing insight into the cheating mindset of footballers.
Speaking in response to the recent Eduardo dive, Platini, for some inexplicable reason, dropped this bombshell:
"I know why players dive. Click to continue reading...

I'm really worried about Eduardo today. It's not the booing and jeering that he will undoubtedly face. Its the referee.
Of course you can say that Eduardo has brought it upon himself to be viewed with suspicion when he is challenged in the area but I hope that Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen are too. Click to continue reading...

Although authorised by our editors, the below article was not written by an author of The Gunning Hawk team but by one of our readers who is a collaborator of this section. If you also would like to have your Arsenal articles published on our website, please click here for more information. Click to continue reading...

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Liverpool FC captain Steven Gerrard will "strenuously" fight a claim for damages from the businessman he punched in a Southport nightclub.
Gerrard was cleared of affray last month following the fight with Marcus McGee, but six of the Liverpool midfielder's friends received suspended jail terms and community service. Click to continue reading...