Steve Bruce has already shown what he is capable of after immediately transforming Sunderland from the eternal strugglers to the league's surprise package. The Black Cats have ensured that the Stadium of Light remains a fortress this season as they have not lost at home since their opening home fixture against league leaders Chelsea.

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Darren Bent has given Steve Bruce and Sunderland a boost as he is in line to make a return from injury against West Ham United on Saturday. Bent injured his knee against Birmingham last weekend and was forced to miss out on Sunderland's Carling Cup clash with Premiership rivals Aston Villa midweek.

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Here are a few of the things that caught my attention over the past few weeks, none of which was quite enough for a full post. Spotted this over on Kickette and...um... Wow. Words fail. Joy. Pure Joy. There are videos all over the place this week of Hondurans declaring their love [...] Click to continue reading...

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sure, the dripping paint is a tad distracting and possibly even pornographic for those who work at Dulux shops, but watching Samuel Eto'o with his boys Seydou Keita and John Mensah in this Puma African kit promo is a nice way to ease into the weekend.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Sure, the dripping paint is a tad distracting and possibly even pornographic for those who work at Dulux shops, but watching Samuel Eto'o with his boys Seydou Keita and John Mensah in this Puma African kit promo is a nice way to ease into the weekend.

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Last week, we brought you extensive coverage of the brand new Puma kits for the sportswear manufacturer's African teams. Now here's a look at some of Puma's marquee African players modeling their national team's brand new kits. Featured are Inter Milan's Samuel Eto'o in the Puma Cameroon 2010 home and away kits, Sunderland's John Mensah in [. Click to continue reading...

UPDATE: According to ESPN Soccernet, Sunderland boss Steve Bruce admitted that the club is close to signing Lyon defender John Mensah. He said,

"It's fair to say that we are close to agreeing a deal.

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According to Graeme Anderson at The Shield Gazette, Lyon defender John Mensah is set to sign with Sunderland on Monday. Mensah's agent Fabien Piveteau said,

"The deal is 95 per cent completed now, and it will go through on Monday, I think .

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Just when you thought the door of the Lyon's transfer season had been locked until December- at least if you believe Puel- with the arrival Bafetimbi Gomis, OL still have some unfinished business to attend to, though it's all "out-bound" traffic, in their minds that is. Really, Puel needs to have his head examined: his minimalist approach to recruiting is really irking the crap-out-of-me.

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UPDATE: According to Neil Allen at The News, Portsmouth executive chairman Peter Storrie admitted that the club has turned down bids for Sylvain Distin as they are not interested in selling him. He said,

"We have turned down offers and will continue to turn down offers .

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UPDATE: According to Matt Parker at The Sun, Sunderland boss Steve Bruce is looking to sign Portsmouth defender Sylvain Distin for £4million.

It is also reported that Sunderland are interested in Lyon defender John Mensah but Lyon's asking price is currently too high.

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While� Florentino Pérez has been busy� attempting to� revenge his fantasy football frustrations� ("why won't� The Sun let me have Cristiano Ronaldo,� Kaká and Karim Benzema!?") on� Real Madrid, another of Europe's less glamorous elite clubs has been undoing a "sporting project" of their own.

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Hotting up.

IN:

Lisandro Lopez: JMA himself was supposed to be in Portugal today to personaly finalize the deal for Lisandro, but management dropped a bomb today on Porto! In L'Equipe, Bernard Lacombe announced that management had called-off the trip to Portugal today, as well as divulging that negotiations for Toulouse striker Andre Pierre Gignac were underway(see more below).

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The transfer rumors seemed to be slowing down, after a few frantic weeks of wild speculation, most of it, pretty outrageous but in the last two days have come-back fullforce. Next week might see OL land their first Summer acquisition and "bigfish" of the mercato, let's keep our fingers crossed.

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"I'm an honest man and you've got to say that Marseille and Bordeaux have worked well these past two seasons. This year maybe they deserve to go all the way..."

Those truly sincere words were uttered by Lyon's Juninho following the team's 2-2 draw last weekend which saw the seven consecutive domestic champions lose top spot since week 4 of the Ligue 1.

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Hopefully the International break helps our goalmeister out of his slump (goaless since Feb).

Saturday April 04, 2009
1 P.M. EST(19:00CET, 18:00GMT)
Le Stade Leon-Bollee

Saturday, Lyon take-on Le Mans in what will be the beginning of a brutal final stretch of matches that will make or break OL's hopes for an 8th consecutive league title.

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I plan to post a much longer entry tomorrow about Lyon's winter transfer season (or lack thereof), but for now, here are some other things that I wanted to mention that don't deserve their own post.

First off, it's INTERNATIONAL TIME!!! That's good news and bad.

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Just who isn't injured? Of the ten players out, seven of them are starting players. Defensively, Lyon are once again in a crisis. They are down to their last men in terms of defense. Besides academy kids, Lyon have no backups at all. If anything happens to the players that are left, Lyon will be screwed.

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These 3-0 losses are starting to turn into a yearly ritual. A humiliating one.

The game was so bad that Lyon's official website posted a highlight video that was only three minutes long - usually they are around twenty minutes. Watching it, I realized why. Apart from Mickael Pagis's three goals, not much else happened.

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Match pictures and highlights at the bottom of the post.

THE GOOD:

Definitely the man of the match...on both sides.

Hugo Lloris.

He's definitely shaken off the jitters that afflicted him in the Fiorentina match.

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According to L'Equipe, this is Lyon's best league start to a season since 2001/2002. Unbeaten in all their games, with five wins and a draw, they are already four points ahead of second placed Marseille. And despite having a defense that would make even the bravest of people whimper with fear, Lyon conceded only two goals so far, giving them the best defense in the league.

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Several players have been called up for international action next week. For many countries, this is the last opportunity to get things sorted before World Cup qualifiers start this fall.

France (vs. Sweden - 08/20/08): Hugo Lloris, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Jeremy Toulalan, Sidney Govou, Karim Benzema

Sweden (vs.

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Forgive this abbreviated match preview, but I'm in the middle of trying to find a new apartment, so things are a bit chaotic in my life at the moment. I'd a nice, long preview planned for the first game of the season, but I guess that will have to wait until next week.

August 10, 2008
Stade de Gerland, Lyon
3 PM Eastern time (21:00 CET, 20:00 GMT)

Toulouse is always annoying to play against, but now that Johan I-love-to-score-against-Lyon Elmander is at Bolton and Achille Pain-in-the-ass Emana is at Real Betis, hopefully things will be a little easier.

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My second favorite signing of the season- and I'm sure Cris' favorite- was realized on Monday. John Mensah is officially Lyon's new left-center back. After weeks of waiting for Sebastian Squillaci's transfer to FC Sevilla to be finalized, Mensah is Lyonnais.

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Although we've all been waiting for the eventual signing of The Rock, John Mensah -which should happen today, Monday- there are other smaller happenings in the Mercato. I apologize for the shortness of the piece, but transfer news is scant lately. I thought I'd throw in some tiny morcels of info to keep the stomach growling to a minimum for those of us who are genuine transfer news junkies, and for those of us who don't read French.

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Sebastien Squillaci is officially gone. Final price was €6.25m plus another half million in incentives, which is more than double what Lyon originally purchased him for two years ago.

In his press conference, Squillaci said that he wanted a new adventure and to continue progressing his career.

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Nothing major to report on the transfer front. Most of the info from Inara's last transfer post is still up to date. Here's the latest:

OUT:

Gregory Coupet: Greg's transfer to Atletico Madrid has been finalized.

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The latest news from this week...Due to the amount of material covered, I didn't post links to the original sources like I normally do, but if you want them, let me know.

OUTGOING:

FRED: Is it just me, or does Fred spend an inordinate amount of time making life difficult for the rest of us?

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