Ching squared off against his old club yesterday. (Photo via Montreal Impact)

As bad as it was back in November, both Brian Ching and the Houston Dynamo are ready to move past the whole expansion draft fiasco.

Ching now a member of the Montreal Impact played the Dynamo yesterday in a preseason scrimmage.

Ryan wrote yesterday about the formation likely to be the most common in 2012, based on John Spencer's almost exclusive use of the 4-4-2 in 2011. It's true, Spencer likes the direct approach to the attack, a strategy that uses lots of speed and doesn't require much in the way of possession.

But part of me wonders if Spencer felt limited in choosing his formation because of a lack of depth on the bench.

The international transfer window close a couple days ago. This doesn't mean too much, but it is a milestone in that MLS teams can no longer actively seek in-contract trades with other teams outside MLS. Still, the roster freeze date isn't until March 1st so we may yet still see more moves made, even if it isn't Juan David Duque (Franck Songo'o?

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.

Behind the Axe looks at some of the finances behind the most recent signings for the Portland Timbers. While the contract terms and numbers aren't released, the rules of MLS contracts did provide the Timbers some financial benefits that potentially helped them in the signing of Kris Boyd, a striker from Scotland.

Despite being a closed session today without any tasty tidbits from John Spencer to chew on, today's Timbers practice was an interesting one none the less.

Although Kris Boyd was, not surprisingly, not yet practicing we were told that he would likely join the team in around ten days while they are in California.

As we all know by now Kris Boyd is the newest addition to the Portland Timbers Roster. He makes his way to the Timbers through a free transfer after terminating his contract with Turkish side Eskisehirspor because they had not paid him since his transfer to the club.

Before his short Time in Turkey he spent 1 season in England with 2 Championship teams, Nottingham Forest (John Spencer's Brother-in-Law's team) and Middlesbrough where he really failed to impress after the manager who brought him in was fired.

As everyone by now knows, Kris Boyd will officially be a Timber sometime in the next few weeks, barring any unforeseen circumstances. Regardless of how we really feel about that, it sure was exciting to see Merritt Paulson bounding out of the tunnel on his way to us members of the press waiting on the side of the field.

On Monday, the Portland Timbers announced the signing of Scottish striker Kris Boyd, the all-time leading scorer of the Scottish Premier League, with 164 goals in 296 matches.

The deal was completed pending the completion of a team physical and receipt of his visa.

The 28-year old forward appeared for Kilmarnock FC from 2000-05 before joining Rangers FC midway through the 2005-06 season.

Last day of the transfer window makes for a fun day.

Two big(ish) points of news on this Monday afternoon.

1. The Portland Timbers have signed their third DP, Scottish striker Kris Boyd. A big stinkin' signing.

2. Faryd Mondragon has left Philadelphia to return to Colombia. Union now down to one keeper in Zac MacMath.

The Portland Timbers were looking for a strong target forward to help fill the role that Kenny Cooper never could quite fill, and they have turned to a proven goal-scorer to do the job.

The Timbers have signed Scottish striker Kris Boyd as a Designated Player, the team announced on Monday.

Silly season continues to go on around the world, and today Sporting KC was named in the silliness. Sky Sports is reporting that the "Kansas City Wizards" are interested in Scottish international striker, Kris Boyd. The 28 year old striker was most recently with Eskisehirsqor in Turkey, where he recently had his contract canceled.

Nicol thinks Boyd would be great in Houston

Former New England Revolution coach Steve Nicol has high praise for both Kris Boyd and Dominic Kinnear. Speaking to the Scottish Sun here, Nicol said "I haven't spoken to Dominic about him. We're mates but we don't speak about players like that. You don't hear Sir Alex Ferguson on the phone to Harry Redknapp to discuss his targets!

Free agent Scottish striker Kris Boyd, formerly of Rangers, Middlesbrough, Nottingham Forest and most recent, Eskişehirspor, is apparently considering an offer from the Dynamo, at least according to Bryan Swanson of Sky Sports.

Boyd is 28-years old and has a fairly strong goal scoring record from his Rangers days, including three 20+ goal seasons.

It was a frustrating opening weekend for the Marquette and UW-Milwaukee men's soccer teams, as the city rivals both took losses to kick off the season.

Meanwhile, UW-Green Bay and new coach Kris Kelderman are still preparing for their first matches, coming up this week.

OADBY TOWN 3-1 ST. ANDREWS
Saturday 27th August 2011
East Midlands Counties League
Greene King Park
Some photos taken in between the (heavy) rain showers can be viewed below:
Scorers:
Oadby - Michael Reeves (12), John Stevenson (15, 63)
St.

Three of the state's four NCAA Division I men's soccer teams start their seasons this weekend, with UW-Green Bay and new coach Kris Kelderman the only side not in action.

UW-Milwaukee will play host to Wisconsin's first match Friday, as the Panthers play host to Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne at 4:30 p.

Scouring Scotland for players has its hazards of course. Remember Craig Levein's unhappy spell at Leicester and Tommy Burns' at Reading? James McFadden, Barry Ferguson and others were quasi megastars in the goldfish bowl, only to act the part of "any other player" down south - sometimes even less than that, as was the case with Kris Boyd and the majority of his Middlesbrough cohorts after the

AC Milan Blog has an exciting announcement to make. World Football Daily, a large American based football website with over thirty thousand readers per month that has had world famous names in football journalism such as Martin Tyler and Kris Voakes contribute, is now presenting material from AC Milan Blog's own, Franky T.

For Tony Mowbray, it must be frustrating to see Kris Boyd and Scott McDonald fail to live up to their reputations of once free-scoring SPL strikers at their previous clubs Rangers and Celtic respectively. It just shows that the transition from Scottish football to English football is much harder than first thought especially from the Scottish Premier League to the Championship.