Sunderland boss Martin O'Neill admits that the Black Cats will have their hands full when they entertain Arsenal at the Stadium of Light today, particularly given the dexterity of Gunners youngster Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

The teenage sensation has quickly become a fan favorite at Arsenal, setting up Robin van Persie's equalizer in the 2-1 defeat against Manchester United and then displaying his scoring abilities by netting twice in last weekend's 7-1 destruction of Blackburn.

Joe Paterno wasn't one of us. He was a football coach, and damn good one a that, but an outsider to the world of soccer. He may have won 409 games with Penn State and made himself one of the most storied characters in the history of collegiate football, but he definitely wouldn't have known Kyle Beckerman from David Beckham.

No matter which team wins the Super Bowl, the 2011 NFL season will be remembered for one thing: Tim Tebow mania. The most talked about player in the league was someone you either loved or hated. There's simply no middle ground when dealing with Tim Tebow.

With that in mind, there is good news for fans of the NFL: Tim Tebow will keep his starting job going forward.

Ducky's Note: If the title is lost on you, you have probably missed the greatest sensation that was ever generated this side of the Arabian Sea. Even that side of the Atlantic has heard of it.

As much comedy as the John-Terry-on-cigarette-packet incident has afforded to all of us, there are two factual inconsistencies in the whole episode.

Danish defender Daniel Agger insists Liverpool must maintain belief if they are to solve their recent woes in front of goal.
The Reds were again left frustrated by a failure to take their chances in the 1-1 home draw against Blackburn Rovers on Boxing Day.
Rovers keeper Mark Bunn produced a number of top saves to deny the home team - particularly from Andy Carroll's late volley.

Liverpool defender Daniel Agger insists his team-mates are focused on doing their best for the club and not Luis Suarez's situation.
The Uruguay international has been hit with an eight-game ban for a misconduct charge along with a £40,000 fine by the Football Association.
The Liverpool players showed their support for Suarez pre-match against Wigan by donning wearing T-shirts featuring his image on the front and number on the back.

Martin Jol was trying to take the positives from his side's Europa League group stage exit, but the reality is, there are very little.
True, it now means his side are free to concentrate on improving their league position, currently a below par 14th.
But given their participation in the competition began in June and incorporated 14 matches it does seem like a huge waste of time given they are now out of it before Christmas.

So it's that time of the year, shortly after the conclusion of another MLS Season and the beginnings of yet another intriguing MLS Offseason, where families gather to mark some occasion from many, many years ago when some people from a foreign land decided to venture forth from their land in search of freedoms, and landed their ships upon the rock known as the good old U S of A.

More Premier League football should be on TV

More Premier League football games should be broadcast live as it would boost club funds, despite a drop in attendances, according to new research.

View the full story here: The Mail

A news article on 2011-11-13 13:43:15 from: The Mail

This news item has been reproduced from today's media.

LSU football coach Les Miles has his Tigers at the top of the national college football polls, but he also has his priorities properly balanced - with family always first.
Jordan Freis writes of the top coach and father of the LSU Tigers.
I read a wonderful article on LSU's head football coach Les Miles today.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has hailed on fire Arsenal skipper as the "perfect captain" after the Dutchman bagged a hat-trick against Chelsea on Saturday.

Van Persie has been instrumental in Arsenal's resurgence after their worst start in the Premier League under Wenger, and has found the net a remarkable 28 times in his last 27 games to prompt football betting experts to back them for a Champions League spot come the end of the season.

Life's tough enough for the unemployed in an unstable global economy. And life is certainly tough enough for those who have to referee football games.

But it's infinitely worse when unemployed and forced to live with the same name as a referee recently rendered exceedingly unpopular by some decisions in a rather large game the previous weekend.

The Premier League has lost its European court battle against a pub landlady who was using a foreign TV decoder to screen football games rather than paying thousands of pounds more to subscribe to Sky and ESPN.

The one thing I have noticed about teams that have won titles, is that they take their chances – I mean even the one chance you would consider slightest, to win a football match. Pundits have termed it ‘champion's luck' but in actual sense, every team has this champions luck. What makes the difference is that some teams take these chances and win titles; others do not and end up in the championship!

Officials don't know how the new domestic football league will be run, when it will kick off or even which teams will be in it. But one thing is certain — for the first time in history, Indonesian league matches will be broadcast overseas.
Liga Prima Indonesia, the country's professional league administrator, signed a broadcast deal on Thursday with television content provider Broadway Media of Malaysia, which will air Indonesian football games in Malaysia on the Bintang and Pelangi channels on Astro All Asia Networks's digital satellite network.

Four European football games, three different countries, two English munts and a beer bike Standard Liege v Helsingborgs (18:08:11)Roda JC v Waalwijk (19:08:11)FC Cologne v Kaiserslauten (20:08:11)RSC Anderlecht v Mons (21:08:11) Join Millwall fans, Guy and Hutch as they romp through Europe swerving their 5 a day in favour of football and beer.

Stupid hurricanes! As if the break wasn't already going to be unbearable enough with a 3 week long break from home games, Hurricane Irene had to come muck up an away game. With no scheduling yet revealed the next away game isn't until September 10th. No telling when the Portland Timbers vs. D.C. United game will get rescheduled.

While Brad Childress coached the Minnesota Vikings, he did whatever he thought was necessary to win football games. Whether that meant getting on his hands and knees to beg Brett Favre to unretire, or trading for the enigma that is Randy Moss. However, regarding the latter move, Brad Childress says he now regrets the decision.

Plenty to talk about today having something to actually discuss might take some getting used to, but it's a welcomed change as the action picks up, both for Liverpool and our sliver of the internet around here.

The Thursday news and notes:

* Noel mentioned the cancellation of the England v.

Could it be that AVB has been impressed with our current squad enough to not need to sign anyone? Remember, David Luiz and Ramires are still to link up with the squad this week.
Well according to Ron Gourlay, he expects a couple of loan deals for our youngsters to be completed before the end of the transfer window and that's it.

I don't know about you, but this sets my heart on edge for the new year.

‪http://www.youtube.com/user/uefachampionsleague?blend=23&ob=5

Cool video. Check out this link for plenty more. If the owner of this youtube account is among us good on you mate. Great channel.

In other news.

The Sun-Sentinel.com of Fort Lauderdale posted a short story last night that the FAA has agreed to a 6-month extension of the lease of Lockhart Stadium to the Broward County School District.

As reported here earlier this month, Strikers president Tim Robbie was confident that a deal could be struck with the FAA and that the NASL team located in Fort Lauderdale and who use Lockhart for games and training sessions, would be staying put.

So, what to do with my review copy of the new book about ESPN, Those Guys Have All The Fun?
First off, I have to confess I did once work for ESPN - at least the website. I wrote for the soccer section of the site during the period when John Skipper, now the head honcho of the whole ESPN shebang, was running the website, but as a freelancer, I never had any inside contact with ESPN culture.

This article has nothing about Arsenal but I just wanted to share my views on the teams fighting the battle for survival at the wrong end of the table.

Two out of Blackburn, Wolves, Wigan, Birmingham, and Blackpool will be joining West Ham in the Championship next season.

To be perfectly frank, I am disappointed that some good sides are struggling to survive.

The Game "It is very frustrating [because] you cannot say we failed quality-wise, because we have produced fantastic football games and we were there in every single game.". No, Arsene. You can instead say that we failed, ...

1. Congratulations lads. The title is not won yet but congratulations for putting us in a position where we need just one point to make it 19. Well done you bloody lovely things, you. You bloody brilliant boys. Well done.

2. As far as starts to football games go, it couldn't get an awful lot better than that.

Aberdeen v St JohnstoneRumours that Aberdeen had buggered off on an early summer holiday proved to be exaggerated in last week's win over Inverness. A little northern light in a bleak end to the season.
And St Johnstone scored at Easter Road. Not once but twice. In a win. Winning football games is relatively simple when you score more than the opposition.

Photos by Jose M. Romero

(SBI Staff writer Jose M. Romero was one of the thousands of Portland natives who braved the elements at Jeld-Wen Field last Thursday to take in a historic night for Portland soccer. Here is his account of that unforgettable night.

Quite often, this is a family show (the sport not us). There is no ID required to prove age for entry to football games, nor will you find it listed under 'Adult' on your television with a 12 digit code required for purchase.

Dario Rodriguez disagrees with the truths of this concept, interjecting his own liberal interpretations on the game with a little, shall we say, tug and pull.

Ok, so it's been a couple of weeks since we got back from the Old Continent, and I've finally recovered. What an insane trip it was. The great You Suck Corrales (pictured above), and myself, took in several football games, and were even shut out of getting into one, all during the space of 10 days.

With the latest bout of bad weather once again hitting the fixture list up and down the country over the weekend many unfortunate football fans from the lower leagues (and particularly north of the border) have once again been hit by the devastating prospect of facing up to a painful and boring weekend without being able to watch their beloved teams in action.

Recently I got a chance to read Tobias J. Moskowitz and L. Jon Wertheim's book, Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How Sports are Played and Games are Won. For those that regularly read this blog you know I enjoy statistics and looking at the break down of them when it comes to the game. Moskowitz and Wertheim take an incredibly deep look into statistics and break down many of the stereotypes of sports that most fans think of.

"Let me tell you that Nani isn't very good on the piano. He's hopeless!" said Anderson. "I didn't know about Berba's drawing... My talents? I'm good at video games. Does that count? It's important to relax, so I spend a lot of time on my PlayStation. I play mainly football games, but I like shooting ones, too.

The best thing about National Holidays falling midweek, is that they make the whole week seem really short. And allows one to stay up and watch midweek games well into the wee hours of the morning without worries of being late for anything. Thank you, Constitution of India.

News broke today that Andy Gray has been sacked from Sky Sports with immediate effect. It is believed that his sexist comments are to blame for his demise...

Dole queue the likely destination for Andy

The long serving Sky Sports presenter and co-comentator, who has also featured on many of the EA Fifa Football games, was repremanded by Sky for his comments regarding Sian Massey's ability to be a linesman in Liverpool's match against Wolves.

Six SPANISH FOOTBALL games played tonight as part of Round 19 of the SPANISH LEAGUE - LA LIGA competition. Great games, spectacular goals that are worth going to the video sections of the Internet & action galour. Here are the results & scorers. Game covered in fog : Zaragoza - Levante Both teams are in deep trouble & REAL ZARAGOZA managed a "health saving" 1 - 0 victory over the last placed