The U.S. men's national team will play its first match of 2012, and an MLS-heavy squad will take the field against Venezuela on Saturday night in Arizona with many players looking to impress Jurgen Klinsmann and work their way into the full senior team mix.

Some familiar faces are back in the mix as Benny Feilhaber and Ricardo Clark are in camp, while Heath Pearce joins them as the only players on the camp roster with more than 30 caps.

Kenny Dalglish admits he is in a position to be able to add to his Liverpool squad if required, but says he has no plans to dip into the market at present.
The Reds took in a busy summer on the transfer front, with a number of fresh faces brought into Anfield.
Dalglish is happy with the business he was able to carry out during that window, with Liverpool having returned to the top-four hunt in the Premier League this season.

West Bromwich Albion have been struggling near to the wrong end of the table and know the next few weeks could define whether they are safe in mid-table or battling Premier League relegation in the closing stages of the season.
Roy Hodgson's men are three places above the dreaded bottom three but do have the safety of a six-point cushion between them in 15th and Bolton in 18th.

Spurs manager Harry Redknapp has once again insisted that this will be a quiet month for Spurs and has warned fans not to expect any new arrivals this month.

Speaking to the Mirror over the weekend Harry said,

"It's extremely unlikely we will be doing any business in this window.

Photo by ISIPhotos.com

The tradition of holding a January camp for mostly MLS players looking to break through into the U.S. naitonal team is going to be maintained during the Jurgen Klinsmann era and the German manager will be putting together his first January camp very shortly.

OK, we have had a couple of days now to get over Liverpool, and get refocused on the next task at hand at that is Leverkusen tomorrow night in the Champions League.
This is our penultimate game of the group stages with Valencia at home to follow and we have qualification by winning the group in our own hands as long we we put in two good performances and getting the right results.

Theo Walcott and Melanie Slade have never really done much for us. He's always seemed awkwardly cool while she's always been on the pop tartlet cusp.

Recall the time when Mel would go out in public with minimal make on, in clothes from H&M. Then fast forward to Wednesday night's London premiere of the 'Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1′ movie and you can see how she's gradually morphed into the Chanel-toting, overly smokey-eyed WAG standing before us.

And so it begins. With Gavin Wilkinson flying all over the world and John Spencer herding in a new set of trialists I think it's safe to say, at this point, the Timbers office is 100% focused on 2012. Not that I would have expected anything else, mind you.

First up it looks like the Timbers will host tryouts, once again, in January.

Liverpool Agony The Ineffective £71 Million Talent - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

A strong finish last season under the legend Kenny Dalglish and the injection of money by the owners to add talent in Liverpool's squad reignited hope amongst the supporters that the club is back to winning ways.

Liverpool owner John W Henry concedes he may have overspent on some players, but believes it was important to put down a marker.
Since completing a takeover at Anfield in October 2010, the Fenway Sports Group has pumped £110.5million into the pursuit of fresh faces.
The likes of Andy Carroll, Luis Suarez, Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing have been snapped up for big money, with the Reds aware of the need to spend in order to compete.

As something of a footnote to Daily Mail sports news this morning, the newspaper reports that David Pleat is lined up to return to the club for a fifth stint in a new role as scout for ‘young and overseas players'.

Tottenham have been linked with a whole host of young talent in recent weeks and during the summer, the club picked up some exciting prospects in the shape of Cristian Ceballos and Soulemayne Coulibaly.

Liverpool is ready to battle Manchester United, AC Milan and Juventus in their attempts to sign Borussia Dortmund star Shinji Kagawa.
Kagawa, 22, is rated one of the best young midfielders in the Bundesliga and has alerted several big clubs across Europe.
Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish is keen to add some fresh faces to his squad in January and reports in Germany suggest he has sent scouts to watch the Japanese international in action.

After everything, the transfer deadline day, the ups and downs of that, the Interlull and more, it seems like ages since that game at Old Trafford.

I get the feeling that even though we qualified for the Champions League August 2011 is not a month that many Arsenal fans will care to look back on, and if they do, it won't be with a great deal of fondness.

So the dust has settled on the summer transfer of August 2011 and while it was a busy day at Spurs Lodge, was it a satisfactory one?

Five of our fringe players have left the club, albeit two are on loan with seemingly no future at the Lane and while Harry Redknapp said at the weekend that fresh faces were needed, we only ended up with one – Scott Parker who arrived from West Ham.

Part 2 of my season preview sees me look at the chances of the mid tablers. If it pans out anything like last season, these predictions could be all over the shop and separated by just 8 points come May. I'm on a hiding to nothing really ain't I hey?

We continue....

14 Bolton

The Trotters disappointed me last season, I thought Owen Coyle really had something but the longer the season went on, the worse they got.

I'm not planning on preparing a full MLS All Stars game review. I just don't have the time or will to put so much effort in something I never really cared about to begin with. That said, I'm not sure you could call Manchester United's 4-nil win over the MLS All Stars anything other than a crushing defeat.

Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG) want manager Kenny Dalglish to sell members of his squad before they will allow him to spend the cash again.
The Reds have already embarked in a £40million recruitment drive this summer, resulting in Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, Charlie Adam and Alexander Doni being signed.

After Chelsea sacked manager Carlo Ancelotti for failing to bring the Champions League back to London, new gaffer Andre Villas-Boas has a huge task on his hands before he even starts his new job.

He needs to find a successful approach in Europe in order to satisfy Blues owner Roman Abramovich, who craves European domination.

The Colorado Force opened the season with a host of fresh faces on Friday, but got a tough result against the visiting Los Angeles Strikers FC in Greeley.

The Force, making one of two appearances this season at Jackson Field in Greeley, were stung in the first half when Los Angeles forward Cherelle Khassal registered the game's only goal.

Sir Alex Ferguson is never content to rest on his laurels, no matter how much success comes the way of the Scot and the players under his control at Old Trafford. So, it won't come as too much of a surprise to fans of the club that the wily United manager is planning on bringing a few fresh faces in over the summer as the Red Devils seek to guard against the predicted rise of the blue side of Manchester.

More than 10 years have passed since the last time a gaggle of fresh faces has caused such a fuss around the United States national team. Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley and other members of the first residency class in Bradenton, Fla., began spicing up the national team scene late in 2000.

Three relative newcomers around Bob Bradley's team have fans similarly stoked today.

Following a busy January transfer window, there promises to be a number of fresh faces on display in Wednesday's top flight fixtures. Premier League bosses have spent the past few weeks scouring the market for top talent, and now is the time for those new recruits to be let off their leash.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. Hoping to put their unspectacular 2010 season behind them, the New England Revolution kicked off their preseason this morning at the Dana Farber Fieldhouse with a host of fresh faces, both young and old. Well, older.

In addition to seven draft picks, a couple of notable veteran newcomers former Paris Saint-Germain defender Didier Domi and two-time MLS Cup champion Ryan Cochrane are also hoping to turn the tide after the club missed the MLS playoffs for the first time in nine years.

Camp Cupcake is over. What ever are we doing to do? Talk about the match against Chile, for one. That's the main dish in this meal, being served-up by myself and co-host Christopher Riordan on this edition of the Major League Soccer Talk podcast. The U.S. drew Chile 1-1 at Home Depot, a series of new or fresh faces go playing time, but what's it all mean?

The SuperDraft has come and gone once again and this year's edition certainly had its share of head turning moves and signings.

The Red Bulls came into the draft with four selections and came away with four fresh faces that could signal quite a bit of change throughout the organization.

Liverpool has joined Aston Villa and Birmingham in the race to sign Blackpool's Charlie Adam, according to Sky Sports.
Adam has been a key figure at the club so far this season with a number of noteworthy performances that have helped Blackpool blossom in the top flight.
Manager Ian Holloway is firmly trying to keep hold of the 25-year-old, and has already declined a £2.

We kicked off the 2011 version of Trivia Time with a question on twitter this morning - yes, yes, we know you are following twitter.com/ussoccer and knew this already - but wanted to fill you in on the answer.
Given this is the first January camp of the 2014 World Cup cycle and there are a lot of fresh faces, we decided to go back to 2007 and ask this question: How many players on the 2007 January camp roster went on to represent the U.