That 7-1 win was needed, that's for sure. On the back of three losses and a draw, Arsenal had to get a win now or our hopes for Champions league football would be too far away to catch. This positivity of the result was also compounded by the draws of the other big clubs. All [...]

After winning MLS Cup, earning a place in the Champions League and become the MLS equivalent of a SuperClub, the LA Galaxy had questions to answer at the end of 2011.
The possible departures of David Beckham, Juninho and the confirmed loss of Donovan Ricketts raised questions. Add to that the threat of extend loans from Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane, the Galaxy had quiet cause for concern.

Colorado faced Chivas USA in a scrimmage at the HDC today. A late Qunicy Amarikwa goal from a Steven Emory assist gave the burgundy boys a 1-0 win. Of course its preseason so its meaningless but wins are always better than losses. The starting XI (trialists makred with a *):
Angulo* - Cummings - MullanLarentowicz - Castrillon - MastroeniZapata* - Marshall - Wynne - KimuraPickens
After subs the team finished with the the following lineup:
Cascio - Amarikwa - AkpanThompson - LaBauex - EmoryFreeman - Palguta - Guido* - AbabioJoyce
Guido is a local player playing with the team while they're in California.

The Portland Timbers wasted no time in beating their first opponent in for their trip down to California as the Timbers came away a with a whipping 4-1 victory over LA. Those of you who were around for last season will remember a similar goal ratio during LA's visit to Portland (3-0).

The goals came from Bright Dike, Jorge Perlaza, James Marcelin and Futty Danso with Franck Songo'o apparently playing a rather large role in the first two goals and in setting up a number of other chances.

February kicks off for Liverpool on Monday, with Spurs set to visit Anfield in the first match of another important month. Liverpool will look to carry their momentum from the domestic cup triumphs and a comfortable 3-0 win at Wolves into the match, which hopefully signals a turnaround from a disappointing league stretch to open 2012 that had seen them winless until the final day of January.

As the losses continue and the supporters' frustration grows, what next? Steve Wright argues Forest fans should come together and contribute to the direction and vision of the club. There will come a time in the future of Nottingham Forest when the club will have to find a way to unite. For so long now [.

With the NBA schedule in fult tilt since Christmas, the season has never seemed this action-packed. The reason is because the games are coming closer together and delivered faster to consumers.
There is more back-to-back scheduling for teams than other years, meaning they play two nights in a row and some back-to-back-to-back, meaning they play three nights in a row at times throughout the season, as well.

Football's a simple game. If you score more or concede less than the other side, you win the match. So I thought it would be worth taking a look at which teams have been doing better than their opponents. The simplest way of doing just that is to calculate differentials for the stuff that matters most - goals - and the stuff without which - shots - the stuff that matters most usually doesn't happen.

The fallout from last week's El Clasico loss was astounding. The fallout from the coming El Clasico – should we lose (which is a likely event) will perhaps be equally astounding. . The players are shit – we need to buy 6 new players. We need a new defense We need a new midfield, We need better strikers.

Looks like the the effect of those UEFA financial fair play rules are having at best a marginal effect as losses rose to €1.6bn for the 2010-11 FY, up from the previous year's €1.2bn loss racked up by Europe's soccer leagues.

The only exception is the Bundesliga which managed to turn around losses into a healthy profit of €52.

I No Longer Know The Arsenal Team I Support by Lorenzo Sallows. Another defeat. Three back to back losses and we continue to drift in limbo, detached from the top four, hopelessly trying to sustain a top half table finish. All but a single goal mustered from a poor display leads us neatly back to [..

"Now is the winter of our discontent."
Yikes.
Liverpool have averaged 1.00 points per game or fewer in eight months over the last four-and-a-half seasons – eight of 46 months during this time frame. Three were in January, including this season, with one in December.

The title race got really interesting this week with Spurs win over Everton. Now it is a three team race, and Spurs boss Harry Redknapp wasted no time laying into big-spending Manchester City.

"City are where they are because of Sheikh Mansour and Chelsea thanks to Roman Abramovich" said Redknapp.

"You keep thinking about it the whole night, replaying it in your mind. What if I had been able to stop that goal?" Keegan Coulter, 16, found it hard to fall asleep that night. There had been larger losses previously, to less capable opponents, but this one was particularly hard to take. "The last goal,

Today Melbourne Victory called a press conference to announce that they have terminated head coach Mehmet Durakovic's contract immediately after just six months. Having produced five losses, six draws and only three wins, the Board decided to call time on his tenure. Chairman Anthony Di Pietro said in an official statement: We have given Mehmet

After reviewing the losses I decided to lump the remaining defenders together. Seattle Sounders FC returns two fullbacks, three centerbacks and Zach Scott man-marker. These ratings add clarity in the various authors' opinions about why Seattle is reinventing it's fullback positions signing Adam Johansson, pursuing Christian Sivebaek and possibly adding more wide defensive talent either through a young international or draftee.

That Tottenham, can they do it? Contenders? Say no more. The JimmyG2 Column. It's getting deucedly difficult to write about Spurs these days. We've had it easy for years: missed opportunities; failures to close games out; last ditch losses; individual poor performances; lack of winning mentality; Jenas.

Last year we started a project to talk about players based on their tools. The idea was to get an outfield position neutral judgement of players based on seeing how they behave on or off the ball when the team either possesses or defends as well as how they use their physical attributes. The scale is an average starting center midfielder set at all 6s while a replacement level player would be straight 5s.

Even for the most faithful Seattle Sounders supporters among us, this has been a bit of a rough off-season. The numbers fairly illustrate why: Nine players that were part of the team during the final game of the season are no longer here. Those players represent more than 14,000 minutes of all-competition playing time or about 29 percent of the total minutes played by the team.

Torres rejects exit reports

Chelsea striker Fernando Torres has brushed off reports that the Blues could be looking to cut their losses and sell him in January.

View the full story here: Sky Sports

A news article on 2011-12-22 11:08:39 from: Sky Sports

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

Manchester City 1-0 Arsenal

Losses and goals conceded are always more palatable when your team acquits itself well. Giving up, or turning up expecting to win, or crumbling inexplicably has been something of a hallmark in recent seasons so one of the most pleasing things about this Arsenal side since October has been the blossoming of its spirit and its excellent attitude.

Finally time for a short post

We're doing okay in the Super League, which is more than I expected at the beginning of the season. Currently we hold the second spot, two points behind Oly. Nine wins, one tie and three losses. Even better, we are doing all this with a lot of young players. Tgether wit a coach who is 100% AEK, the future looks not so bad.

By Chris Wright

Not that we're giving it much credence, but word in the Daily Mail this morning is that Chelsea are prepared to listen to offers for Fernando Torres come January in a bid to cut their losses as £50 million's worth of doleful Spaniard slips ever-further down the pecking order at Stamford Bridge.

Goals, goals, goals. With Liverpool wasting chance after chance, profligacy to blame for home draws with Norwich, Swansea, and Sunderland as well as away losses to Stoke and Fulham, the number of goals scored has become both millstone and mantra, a clear problem in obvious need of fixing, the major fault keeping the side from reaching its full potential.

After ten games in this A-League campaign we sit 8th on the table with six draws, two losses and just two wins. When you also consider that the team are playing like shit 95% of the time I think its fair to say that Melbourne Victory are stuck in a rut. rut noun • a

It has been reported, and especially after AVB has reportedly told six of our first team squad that they are free to leave the club, that Paris St Germain are more than interested in Salomon Kalou.
Kalou as we all know has failed to hold down a regular first team spot ever since he has been at Chelsea really if you think about it.

The Sounders have lost more players this season than any previous MLS off-season. That's without the official losses of Pat Noonan and Nate Jaqua who could still be drafted in Stage Two of the Re-Entry Draft on Monday. But there have been three retirements, the odd departure of Miguel Montano with basically no compensation, the expansion draft loss of James Riley and the trade of Tyson Wahl for allocation money have Seattle with plenty of openings.

What are the odds this is Fergie's final season as United manager? Derek McGovern's Bets of the Day

Both Manchester clubs will be hit financially by their Champions League exits, so to recoup losses they are bringing out a special perfume for Christmas – Channel No.

Chelsea's rogue owner, Roman Abramovich, has historically shown no mercy to his managers when results don't meet his satisfaction. Names like Avram Grant, Luis Felipe Scolari and even the self proclaimed special one, Jose Mourinho have all fell prey to the wrath of the ambitious owner. With hard losses to Arsenal, Liverpool, and Bayern Leverkusen, [.

Lucas' absence and Liverpool's subsequent change in formation altered the position of two of Liverpool's key players against Fulham: whoever the holding midfielder is and Luis Suarez.
Jay Spearing often played further up the pitch than Lucas usually defends, while far more static in general.

Rich's law for seeing how it's all going

The law states that, at any given point in a season, Fulham should have about the same number of wins, draws and losses. Any imbalance one way or the other is either a signifier that Fulham have been better or worse than expected.

We currently have a record of: P13, W2, D6, L5

How to read this, then?

By Joel Greenwaldt
Each week during the season I'll post an updated MISL Power Ranking which will be based off the cumulative results and current strength of each team. Here's my rankings heading into Week 5.
#1 Milwaukee Wave (4-0, 1st Place MISL Central Division)
The Milwaukee Wave improved to 4-0 on the season this past weekend with a victory over the Wichita Wings.

Win one, lose one, win one, lose one. That's the Palermo way at the moment. The Aquile are consistently inconsistent: they've alternated between wins and losses in each of their last six games and haven't strung two wins together all season. They're hopeless on the road and have failed to score a single goal, but they've been unbeatable at home with six wins from six.

In The Stands can confirm that Chelsea are ready to cut their losses with beleaguered boss Andre Villas-Boas sooner rather than later after a poor 2-0 Carling Cup quarter-final defeat to Liverpool on Tuesday. Villas-Boas' fate was sealed after Liverpool's second win at Stamford Bridge in nine days saw the Blues crash out of this [.

Dear Michel,

You do allow me to call you Michel I hope? I have seen you play at least a dozen times when I was a kid in the Parc des Princes and your unforgettable goals against Bulgaria, Yougoslavia, and Spain to list just a few. I consider you as my favorite player of all times.

LA Galaxy 1-0 Houston Dynamo After failing to make it to the MLS Cup final last year, the LA Galaxy were able to take home both the Supporter's Shield and the MLS Cup for the first time since 2002. The LA Galaxy finished the regular season with only 5 losses and an unbeaten streak at [...]

Junior goalkeeper Lara Campbell on Oct. 7, 2011 during the South Alabama match @ CIBER Field

The University of Denver's women's soccer team has had an amazing season, and finished with 16 wins and only five losses.

Junior goalkeeper Lara Campbell made an astounding 43 saves this season even after suffering a, high ankle sprain injury early on in the season.

Slovenia is another round of teams better than the United States that Jurgen Klinsmann will test his system and talent evaluation against on a Tuesday morning at 9 AM Pacific on ESPN2. Similar to the USA the Slovenes faded since the World Cup. They weren't as high in the rankings, nor have they fallen as far.

Photo: Paul Rudderow
As noted in a recent post on the Philadelphia Union website, "Over the course of 34 games, opposing teams averaged a mere 3.05 shots on goal this season, an all-time league record."

Over the course of the 2011 season, the Union held opponents to zero shots on goal twice, one shot on goal 5 times, two shots on goal six times and three shots on goal 11 times.

For the first time in more than three years, a college football team received all first place votes during the college football regular season. That team is LSU, who sits at 10-0. No. 2 in the AP Top 25 is Oklahoma State, followed by Alabama, Oregon and Oklahoma.

Stanford and Boise State both fell after suffering their first loss of the season this weekend.