Some good news for Madrid fans as arch rivals Barcelona slumped to a 3-2 loss Osasuna yesterday forcing Barca coach Pep Guardiola to admit that his side is now at the mercy of Madrid and only a slip up from the capital club would give his team a lifeline.

Madrid could go 10 points clear at the top of the table should they win at home to Levante today an opportunity i am sure Mourinho would not want to miss.

By Chris Wright

Germany have finally gotten around to launching their new change strip for Euro 2012 and, as we stated when it was originally leaked ages and ages ago, it's a work of true retro kunst harking back to their beautiful green strip from 1972 and marking the 40th anniversary of their first European Championship win.

According to our old friends at the Daily Mail, Spurs have opened talks with club captain Ledley King over a new contract to replace his current one which expires at the end of the season. The report also suggests that the player will reject a pay as you play deal although it seems to offer no claim that this is the type of contract that the club is offering.

It's a pretty futile task to find any headlines other than those pertaining to the question of the England manager's job this morning but is it inevitable that Harry Redknapp is about to step into Fabio Capello's expensive Italian shoes?

Virtually every newspaper and sports website is covering this and there are so many different claims as to what, if anything, has already been decided.

It's been a strange few days for Forest fans in the aftermath of the untimely passing of Nigel Doughty. The elements intervening in the weekend's game gave a welcome break from contemplating our on-the-pitch troubles and time for reflection time that many Forest fans have put to good use in raising over £3,000 for ChildLine as a small tribute to the memory of our owner [.

Daneil Cyrus is not in camp with Sporting KC due to "personal reasons" and it doesn't look like he'll be joining the team soon. Word out of Trinidad (h/t The Daily Wiz) is that Cyrus will be joining the Trinidad and Tobago U-23 for a camp. The camp will be capped off by two friendlies again the full national team of Guyana.

We've all made jokes about Sergio Busquets' habit of falling down and clutching his face for no good reason, but this time it was his knee and he wasn't faking.

A mere seven minutes after entering Barcelona's 2-1 win over Real Sociedad in the 76th minute, Busquets was accidentally stepped on by Carlos Martinez, opening up a deep gash under his right knee.

A few days ago, Mark Lawrenson argued that Arsene Wenger would probably 'fall on his sword' at the end of the season, especially if he failed to guide Arsenal into next season's Champions League. Liverpool legend Alan Hansen agrees with his former defensive partner, and believes the next 8-10 weeks could be the defining period of Wenger's reign.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I like to pick out a video on YouTube now and again to showcase some of the work being done by fantastic people on there. In the last few days my Torres post which had over 10,000 hits alone featured work put together on the video channel.
Here I present to you yet another one to have a watch.

Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal

By DogFace

Referee: Andre Marriner Assistant 1: John Flynn Assistant 2: Sian Massey 4th Official: Paul Tierney

Good morning stat-fans and welcome to RefWatch...

It's been a depressing few days to be an Arsenal fan as we saw points drop again – what made [.

Sigh.

First of all, the Arsenal Offside would like to place its thoughts to the victims from today's awful turn of events in Egypt. A truly disheartening experience. Some things are bigger than football, and this was definitely one of them.

Typical Arsenal. A few days after a great comeback victory, a victory that had the potential to help turn our season around and put us on the right track (granted, it was a poor Villa side), we draw against an insipid Bolton side that is currently languishing around the relegation zone.

When I started this site back in 2009, I had expected the site to devote a significant amount of ink to the transfer market and the finances involved in buying and selling players. Over time the focus has shifted to marketing, promotions, broadcast and other business issues facing soccer in the United States.

The past few days have altered the landscape of MLS, the Western Conference and, specifically, Cascadia. While many of us have always believed that the West was much stronger than the East, the amount of talent that has flooded in during the past week alone has only strengthened that belief.

Let's review: The Portland Timbers have added Kris Boyd, the leading scorer in Scottish Premier League history; the Vancouver Whitecaps traded for Sebastien Le Toux, who's contributed to 45 goals over the past two seasons; and the LA Galaxy brought back Edson Buddle, who scored 19 goals during the 2010 season.

Now that the January transfer window has closed in England, I've been given the go-ahead to report, exclusive to HEGS, that a few days ago a representative of Arsenal's scouting team in London enquired about offering a contract to Claudio ... Continue reading →

(P.S: If you access this site via "come.to/matchpix", please click the "Facebook" icon after you click "HERE" when you want to view the album as that will redirect you to the album, thank you)

• SGFootball Friendly @ Padang - SCC 0-4 Hougang Utd (8/1/12))

The Cheetahs played their first match since resumed training three weeks ago and on the most expensive green on the island - The Padang against NFL side SCC.

Manu Ginobili of the San Antonio Spurs is getting closer and closer to being ready to return to action. After breaking his hand on January 2nd against the Minnesota Timberwolves, doctors told Ginobili that he'd need about six weeks to recover.

However, Ginobili appears to be a bit ahead of schedule.

In amongst all the transfer rumour chaos there's a Premier League game to be played tonight and according to Spurs' assistant Joe Jordan, there are a few injury worries ahead of the game with Wigan.

Jordan revealed new doubts over Jermain Defoe and Aaron Lennon, both of whom have picked up fresh hamstring injuries in the last few days.

Greetings from sunny and cool Arizona, where I will be spending a few days in Phoenix. I'm here to visit some friends but also to check out some of the MLS training camps that are going on in metro Phoenix, Casa Grande, and Tucson. I believe that New England Revolution, Sporting Kansas City, Seattle Sounders, Real Salt Lake, and San José Earthquakes will be here, so I hope to catch a few glimpses, assuming that their sessions are open to the public, of course.

Arsenal's defence has taken a pounding over the last few weeks with the numerous injuries to the back line, and Arsene Wenger has maintained that there is no truth in any of the Arsenal transfer rumours and he will not be making any purchases in the next few days, maybe! He was typically cryptic last [.

Three of Sporting KC's trialists are heading to Arizona with the Sporting KC team. Goalkeepers Steve Spangler and Scott Angevine will be joined by former Michigan State midfielder, Cyrus Saydee in Arizona. The team departs tomorrow.
Sadly for Irving Garcia, Matt Kuhn, Myron Samuel, and Kevin Struck the attempts to make the Sporting KC roster end after a few days.

Aston Villa

Position 11th, 6-9-7 (27 points, -3 goal differential)

Away Record: 3-6-2, -1 goal differential

Recent Form: DWLDW

Last Meeting: Aston Villa 1 Arsenal 2 (December 21, 2011)

Back in action tomorrow (remember when we used to play matches on Saturday) as we square off against Aston Villa in the FA Cup 4th round match.

The long substitution

It's finally confirmed, the news that we did not want to hear. That Jack Wilshere has had a setback and would not be available in the date that we initially had hoped he would be back for. AC Milan's games were touted as his return period but that will now have to be extended.

Manchester City may be top of the Premier League, but they were poor against Liverpool last night, and Kenny Dalglish's team arguably dominated for long periods of the game. Despite the ineffective performance, Anfield legend Steve Nicol still believes that City are the second best team in the world.

Chelsea defender Gary Cahill is already feeling at home with his new teammates, describing the squad as an 'entertaining' group following the club's short training camp in Mallorca.

The Blues returned home earlier today and after spending most of the time in Mallorca training together in the warm weather, Cahill feels that the bonding within the squad got stronger by the day.

A clearly angry Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak has ruled out Carlos Tevez's move to Italian giants AC Milan. Mubarak who did not mince his words during an interview with The National in Abu Dhabi.

Mubarak is livid with the way Milan have conducted themselves the entire time and have continually maintained that loaning him with the option of buying at the end of the season is not an option.

Taye Taiwo has finally been officially unveiled as Queens Park Rangers' new signing this January and the player express his gratitude towards the club's manager, Mark Hughes, who reportedly was then one asking for the Nigerian international.

The six months loan deal with possible buy out clause at the end of season was actually done few days ago, but it's just got active after Taiwo received his working permit, a basic conditions for foreigners to play in the premier league.

The name Mateo Kovacic has appeared in the rumour columns for a few months now but there is an indication from the Croatian's club that Spurs are keen to tie up a deal for his services.

Kovacic is just 17 and currently playing as an attacking midfielder for Dinamo Zagreb. Having broken into the first team in 2010 at the age of sixteen, he has gone on to establish himself as a regular starter and one of the hottest young properties in Europe.

Rangers striker Nikica Jelavic is set to snub the interest of several other English clubs to seal a transfer to Liverpool, a club that the player's father has described as 'great'.

Jelavic has been the subject of interest from the Reds' fellow Premier League side Queens Park Rangers as well as Championship outfit West Ham United.

We don't think there's anything wrong with Alan Pardew taking the first team squad away on a sunshine break for a few days in January. Alan Pardew taking a break in Tenerife Alan did that last January about the same time, when he took the lads to Faro, Portugal, but the weather at that time was [.

The Agent of talented attacker Lucas Moura has once again confirmed that the Brazilian will not be leaving Sao Paulo for the Premier League this month.In early January, Moura's agent Wagner Ribeiro told a Brazilian radio station that Liverpool had put in a bid for the exciting starlet:"I received three offers for my client [Moura] from Chelsea, Inter and Liverpool".

Nikica Jelavic's father has claimed that the Rangers striker has grander ambitions than to play for West Ham or Queens Park Rangers and is 'most likely' to sign for Liverpool.
The Croatian has been heavily linked with a move away from Ibrox this winter following a series of impressive performances in the SPL over the past 18 months.

By Tony Edwards - San Jose, CA (Jan 19, 2012) US Soccer Players -- In today's Questions, Tony wonders if it's possible for a professional soccer player to have a more bizarre few days than DaMarcus Beasley and his Puebla teammates. From there, we look at changes in New England, and wonders about the Fire's signings and DC's attack.

Player news is starting to pick up a little bit for Sporting KC. The team today made two announcements on player news, and a new rumor has cropped up on another player.
First, after the announcement yesterday of the trade for Michael Thomas' rights, the team today announced that they had signed the Olathe native to a contract.

In his defense, Robbie Findley may have been their best player on the day. Still... yikes. That is going to earn the FA some sweet highlight fees for a few days. They should cut our guy a check.- Greg Seltzer

By Chris Wright

As you may or may not know, 128-year old Blue Square Premier side Darlington FC have had to sack their management team and playing staff and are teetering on the verge of extinction after going into administration for the third time in less than a decade largely thanks to the utterly ridiculous £20-million, 25,000-seater 'Darlington Arena' stadium that former chairman and tax-dodger George Reynolds paid through the nose for a few years previous.

It was a dream re-union for Manchester United as old boy Paul Scholes scored the opener for United in their 3-0 win over Bolton Wanderers. However it's not one happy camp at Old Trafford as Sir Alex Ferguson has given a warning to under performing striker Wayne Rooney who missed a penalty.

Rooney has in the recent few weeks struggled to consistently perform and this has led to rumours that the striker could leave United.

Wallowing in the glory of Henry's movie-moment comeback was not meant to last all week, but for me it has. The YouTube video I breathlessly uploaded at about midnight on Monday has now had about 37,000 hits (and Analytics tell me 90.6% of those who watched it were male, with 9.7% female how do they know this I wonder – though my brother did confidently predict that he had watched it "about 28,000 times" so maybe there's some truth in that).

Sczesny will do well to rectify his recent mistakes than worrying about his team mates' dressing

Been absent without a post for a few days now. Plethora of reasons why I didn't write anything new. From work to busy personal schedule (yes, there's more to me than just football), to still being lost for words on what that goal on Monday did to me to just being pure and utterly lazy.

Today at Bartle Hall in Kansas City, Sporting KC added two new players to their roster ahead of the start of preseason next week. Not needing to draft a specific player that would be required to come in and fill a need, KC was able to look a few different directions with their pick at number 16 and even at pick number 30.

Roberto Mancini seems to be faltering under some of the questioning from the media recently, seemingly letting them get under his skin as the season starts to hot up. His side lost 1-0 at home to Liverpool in the first leg of the League Cup semi final, with a Gerrard goal the difference, and apparently the 2 came to clashes in the tunnel after the game over a bad tackle by Glen Johnson.