For the second time in four league games Newcastle conceded five goals yesterday. Adebayor looked unplayable yesterday and Saha wasn't bad either And four of those were in the first half at White Lane yesterday, and we conceded five in a similar collapse at Craven Cottage three weeks ago, so where did our strong and tough defense go?

We knew the Melbourne Victory defence, central defence was too slow, too fragile and lacked Muscat.
And in midfield the pairing of Leigh Broxham and Grant Brebner could never control the game in the Asian Champions League games - at times the Victory were embarrassing - and these our Aussie Champions - and this season they've never had the ball, kept the ball or enabled the style boys to get on the ball.

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Former D.C. United striker Blake Brettschneider is the latest free agent hoping to earn a spot on the New England Revolution for the 2012 season. Brettschneider is set to join the team on trial next week the Revs confirmed to New England Soccer Today on Thursday afternoon.

Brettschneider, a 22-year-old who can also play in midfield, played in 15 league games, including nine starts, for D.

Newcastle have a tough game in London on Saturday as they will go up against 3rd placed Tottenham Hotspur, who have 50 points from their 24 league games. Papiss Cisse scores first goal ever for Newcastle And Tottenham have only lost one game very early in the season at White Hart Lane, when Manchester City took them apart 5-1.

After a red-hot start to the season, Jozy Altidore had lost his starting role for AZ Alkmaar and was mired in a bit of a scoring slump.

At the very least, that slump is now over.

Altidore scored twice in a four-minute span as a substitute in AZ's 6-0 rout of ADO Den Haag on Wednesday to break a two-month scoring drought.

There's no doubt that after his performance and goal against Aston Villa in his debut on Sunday afternoon that Papiss Cisse is currently the Toast of the Toon. The new Newcastle hero thanks fans after Sunday's win Newcastle have now won four of their last five league games, and the only real let-down was that second half at Craven Cottage.

NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) has found Arlo White's broadcast partner in Kyle Martino, according to a tweet by Grant Wahl.

The Sports Illustrated columnist reports that he is "hearing Kyle Martino to sign with @NBCSN as analyst for MLS/US broadcasts."

Wahl went on to say that it "sounds like FOX doesn't want to let Martino out of contract as Sounders did with Arlo White.

Be great if he scored!...Liverpool welcome Tottenham to Anfield Monday night as they look to continue their good run of form and pick up some more points in the League. With Luis Suarez completing his ban, the Anfield faithful can't wait to see him back on the pitch, an extra threat for Spurs to be aware of.

In our best performance this year we humiliated a struggling Blackburn Rovers with our superior attacking display.

The beginning of this article was written before our win over Blackburn Rovers yesterday.

Here we are, now our fourth game without another win in the Premier league, and the best we could do was a nil-nil draw.

What an improvement on recent league games, we finally clicked into gear and destroyed the opposition, and frankly thank goodness for that. defeat today would have been an utter disaster. A mixture of better finishing and some more incisive play in the final third catalysed by some key players returning to fitness helped us win this one so convincingly.

Arsene Wenger faced the press yesterday ahead of Arsenal's crucial home game against Blackburn, where he is trying to arrest a run of four League games without a win, and he took the assembled journalists to task for always being so pessimistic, even when Arsenal are doing well. "Look, at the moment we are in [.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has urged his players to get their ailing domestic campaign back on track by recapturing the spirit of their famous invincible side of the 2003-04 season.

On Wednesday, Arsenal played out a 0-0 draw with Bolton Wanderers at the Reebok Stadium and although they finally managed to end their point drought after three consecutive defeats, it wasn't a source of joy for the Gunners as they now find themselves at seventh position on the league table, behind the likes of Newcastle United and Liverpool.

Arsenal have now gone four League games without a win, but that run could pale into insignificance if the Gunners don't start improving very quickly. Arsenal may have an "easy" home game this weekend against Blackburn, but if the DON'T win it may be hard to forecast where the next win will come from as [.

"Not good enough."

Three words used often by football fans to describe aspects of the club they support. They're used in relation to certain players, performances, the manager, the board, the price of a pint and a pie, how their club handles various communications, pretty much anything they've got the hump with for one reason or another.

Notts County v Stevenage
Meadow Lane | League 1
4th February 2012 | 3:00pm kick off

Gary Smith's first game in charge was against Notts County last weekend and his first league game will also be up against Martin Allen's side as Boro travel to Nottingham this Saturday. Stevenage are still on a high from last weekend's Cup win and the bonus of drawing Tottenham in the 5th round.

Newcastle United are up to fifth in the Premier League after they beat Blackburn Rovers 2-0, while Arsenal's poor run of form continues as they were held 0-0 at Bolton.

Newcastle are now just three points behind Chelsea and a UEFA Champions League place as the Magpies leapfrog both Liverpool and Arsenal with the win.

African Cup of Nations (Group C), Gabon vs Tunisia (1pmET, Al-Jazeera Sports / Eurosport International):Tunisia and tournament co-host Gabon both won their first two group games and hence will advance to the final eight (while the other two teams in the group, Niger and disappointing Morocco, will go home).

Good morning and welcome to that most exciting of days. Tuesday.

Sorry, I mean Transfer Deadline Day. The day when all kinds of deals go down. Players are traded like cattle, Premier League slave ships buffet about in the choppy waters scouring for a bargain here or cast-off there, oh, the fun we'll have.

It's been rumored and speculated on since he pulled out of the re-entry draft, but today, Sporting KC finally made it official. Luke Sassano has signed a new contract with Sporting KC. Sassano had played in 9 league games last year in a season that was cut short by some injuries. Sassano had not had his contract picked up and had gone into the re-entry draft.

Olympique Lyonnais vs. Dijon FCO

Match day 21 – Ligue 1.

In an unbelievably quiet transfer zone window, the report card on indecision in the last month will come 21 days later. That is because starting tonight, Lyon plays a match roughly every three days, for the next three weeks!

Blackpool goalkeeper Matt Gilks tasted Premier League football last season with the Tangerines and now the shotstopper is looking for his side to make a swift return to the top flight.
The Seasiders sit just one point off the play-off places in the Championship table in seventh spot, in what has once again been a very competitive league this term with any side capable of getting a result in any game.

I don't know if you've noticed, but January has been pretty awful so far. We've lost all three of our league games, and we've gone back to our old habit of throwing away leads. United swept us aside with an ease that was almost saddening, given how massive the games between the two clubs used to be.

D.C. United's preseason personnel surge continued on Wednesday with the acquisition of Argentine centerback Emiliano Dudar from BSC Young Boys in Switzerland.

The 6-foot-4, 30-year-old Dudar is a player with experience on a number of levels and is a one-time Swiss league Defender of the Year (2009-2010).

Giovani Dos Santos is no stranger to moving during the winter transfer window, but instead of what has happened in past years, he is on the verge of leaving club purgatory for good.

Forever glued to the bench at Tottenham, the 22-year-old Mexican star is on the verge of a full transfer to Spanish club Villarreal, according to reports from Europe.

When Manchester City dispatched Manchester United in commanding fashion earlier this season, the City steamroller was powerful, efficient, and impressive. It looked downright unstoppable. As Kevin McCarra noted the day of City's 6-1 trouncing of United in The Guardian, "For the football world at large, it is more significant still that City have 33 goals from nine league games.

Mario Balotelli faces a potential 4-match ban (3 league games) for a stamp on Scott Parker in Manchester City's win over Tottenham on Sunday. While that's bad news for City fans, it's super news for fantasy managers / potential owners ... Continue reading →

Senegal striker Papiss Demba Cisse will team up with international team-mate Demba Ba at Newcastle United after signing from Freiburg for a fee thought to be around £10m.
Cisse has signed a five-and-a-half-year at the club and will wear the much-coveted number nine shirt. The 26-year-old will have to wait for his Newcastle debut due to his involvement in the Africa Cup of Nations.

Wes Brown was repeatedly given a hard time by Sir Alex Ferguson when it came time for contract negotiations. In October 2004 the club had offered Brown what they believed to be a reasonable deal and weren't prepared to budge.

"We've made the boy an offer and he's turned it down," said Ferguson.

Manchester United and Liverpool target Ricky van Wolfswinkel is a wanted man – with Lazio ready to make a £13million bid for the Sporting Lisbon star this month.
United and Liverpool are keen on the striker but were expected to wait until the summer to make bids.
But they could yet be forced into action this month as Lazio are ready to enter the race to sign the highly-rated Dutchman.

Espanyol extended their unbeaten run to five league games and moved into fifth place in La Liga thanks to a comfortable 3-0 win over Granada. The hosts started brightly and took the lead when Raul Baena headed in from Thievy Bifouma's flick-on after 26 minutes.

Espanyol doubled their advantage just before half-time as Allan Nyom was harshly penalised for a trip on Vladimir Weiss and Joan Verdu slotted home the penalty.

By Alan Duffy

Norwich City 0-0 Chelsea Premier League 21 January 2012

Chelsea failed to make much ground on third-placed Tottenham at Carrow Road on Saturday, after playing out a rather disappointing goalless draw with Norwich City.

OADBY TOWN 2-1 AMPTHILL TOWN
Saturday 21st January 2012
FA Vase 4th Round
Greene King Park
After what feels like a long time since I saw Oadby in action this is to be the first of two consecutive Saturday home games for the Poachers. The last time I was down here for a games was on December 3rd when they hosted Tipton Town in the last round of this competition.

Manchester City Enjoying Home Comforts In Title Race - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Castrol EDGE analysis shows that Manchester City's strength at the Etihad Stadium has been central to their challenge for the Premier League title.

Roberto Mancini's side have won each of their last 15 home league games, a home winning streak only bettered once in Premier League history, by none other than their Manchester rivals United.

Yesterday's rumors about KC announcing the signing of Jacob Peterson turned from rumor to fact today as Sporting KC announced the signing of the 6 year MLS veteran. Peterson had been without a team since he was allowed to entry the re-entry draft by the San Jose Earthquakes. Peterson becomes the third player with a fairly long MLS career to join Kansas City this offseason, joining Bobby Convey and Pablo Nagamura.

In the summer of 2006 Manchester United were written off. Chelsea had just won the league with ease and added one of the best players in the world for each position to their squad. Ashley Cole, Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko joined them, whilst in contrast we sold our top scorer, Ruud van Nistelrooy, and didn't replace him, and brought in Michael Carrick, who was hardly the midfield general the fans had been hoping for.

Levi Houapeu, Morgan Langley, Ryan Richter and Joe Tait will not be with the Philadelphia Union in 2012 after the group's contract options were declined by the team. Only Langley saw action in MLS regular season play last year, with Houapeu hurt most of the year, Richter learning how to play a brand new position (fullback) and Tait a late signing for center back depth.

Thierry Henry has been able to provide a spark for Arsenal in his brief time on loan with the club, but the Gunners may have to look elsewhere for inspiration during their crucial match this weekend.

Henry picked up a calf strain in training, and his status is uncertain for Arsenal's match against Manchester United.

Jamie Lieberman (Racine Prairie School/UW-Parkside) was a busy man last week – the Norfolk SharX goalkeeper made a whopping 54 saves in a pair of Major Indoor Soccer League games.

The impressive performances led to the first two wins of his professional career, and on Tuesday he reaped another reward as he was named the MISL Player of the Week.

After enjoying a great run of results against Manchester City in recent years, the last two league games haven't exactly gone our way and although Sunday's opponents have struggled a little in recent weeks, the Etihad will be a tough place to go and get a result.

There is a great belief in this current Spurs side however and Luka Modric is one player who is targeting an upset this time around.