The FAI (Ireland's ruling Soccer organization) has demanded a reply of their match in which they lost to France yesterday.� All of this comes over more bad calls/non-calls by officials and has even been brought to light by a French player who was involved in the incident.�

I want to make clear that I am writing with the question.

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Rafa Benitez gave a bizarre interview to the Times yesterday, and Liverpool fans should be worried that the pressure may be getting the better of their leader.� When a manager spends time talking about the support he is getting from the management, threatening to quit, and talking about the legacy he wants to leave behind, he sounds less like a manager worried about this weekend's game against Man City and more like a man who wants to put this whole mess behind him.

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The Head Man at Manchester United, Gary Neville, had what I would call a "well-intentioned" idea about officiating in the Premier League that has a snowball's-chance-in-hell of happening.� Neville wants the Premier League to come up with a "pool" of good officials to officiate the most important and biggest Premier League matches.

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Hello all. Once again, I would just like to apologize for the delay as we get the blog restructured. To handle the day-to-day news, and to keep us running smoothely, the Manchester United Offside would like to welcome two new bloggers to the page: Ryan and and Rebecca (see below for their individual bios).

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The Galaxy did just like I said and took away the assist-maching in Houston in a shutout to reach the Final for the MLS Cup.

I also mentioned that the Dynamo needed to find a way to keep Landon Donovan "double-teamed" or something that would not allow him to beat them and they simply couldn't do it.

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No TGIF during the International break, so it gives me a chance to go back to traditional blogging. The subject for discussion this week is the vexed question of silverware at Arsenal football Club. The persistent refrain of Arsenal MUST win something this season if the youth experiment is to be hailed as a success is rather doing my head in. Click to continue reading...

The international break means there will be little club news to report. But it seems some sort of groundwork is already being set in motion, with the transfer window a month and a half away.

Here's Schalke defender Marcelo Bordon, in an interview to German newspaper, Bild on goal keeper, Manuel Neuer:

"I know it would be terrible for the supporters of the club, but you have to keep the situation of the club in mind.

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AP Photo/Manu Fernandez

Pep Guardiola fielded a different looking lineup this evening at the Camp Nou against Cultural Leonesa in the second leg of the Copa del Rey. Barcelona was going into the match already up by two goals after routinely pushing aside Leonesa on their home pitch.

The starting front three of Pedro, Bojan and Jeffren put on display the teams younger talent.

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Finally, Chelsea found their "hand" and used it to great effect in their 1-0 win over Manchester United yesterday.� The match was a rough and tumble affair that featured very little in the way of scoring opportunities for either squad but did feature virtual girth of tension and upheaval at Stamford Bridge.

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Because with live in a world of litigation and because people get all bent out of shape over the smallest things (that could easily be explained) and because litigation takes forever and lawyers are expensive (otherwise they wouldn't bother to take forever) and because you can get any kind of suspension lifted while you're waiting for an appeal it appears that Chelsea can do business as usual since the Court of Arbitration for Sport won't be able to set a date for a hearing until February.

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Comenzó la O-League, el torneo de clubes más importante de Oceanía, cuyo campeón disputará el Mundial de Clubes de la FIFA 2010. Se trata del nuevo formato que en 2007 adoptó la antigua Copa de Campeones de Oceanía, imitando a la Champions League europea.
Participan ocho equipos de siete paíes, lo que demuestra un constante crecimiento. Click to continue reading...

As I mentioned on Monday, The Manchester United page is looking for bloggers to cover the biggest club on the planet. I am planning on staying on and posting 1-2 times a week, but we were looking for someone to cover the day to day news stories. If you're interested in the position, you can email me at manu@theoffside.

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As I mentioned on Monday, The Manchester United page is looking for bloggers to cover the biggest club on the planet. I am planning on staying on and posting 1-2 times a week, but we were looking for someone to cover the day to day news stories. If you're interested in the position, you can email me at manu@theoffside.

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Sporting have falling back a few spots in the Portuguese Superliga after drawing today against Maritimo. Sporting looked to cement their fourth place spot but after the draw with Maritimo coupled with Rio Ave and Nacional victories, Sporting now sit tied in sixth spot in the league. Sporting opened the scoring in the second half after Matias Fernandez scored but Manu brought the game back to Click to continue reading...

It is strange that Arsenal Champions League matches always play second fiddle to those of Chelsea/Manu/Liverpool when it comes to getting on tv, especially given how few supporters Chelsea have. It is strange how rarely an Arsenal game is featured early on in Match of the Day, invariably tedious games involving Manu/Chelsea and Liverpool feature earlier on. Click to continue reading...

Chelsea must have lost their "hand"� altogether because now they might be dealt a whole other blow to their already fragile stance at the top of the Premier League.� By some miracle they are ahead of ManU by two points and I can't imagine how they've gotten this far considering all the things that have happened.

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Por Nick Panzeri
Contra el brillo de la Premier, fútbol. Frente a la intensidad, el frenesí y la emoción de un Liverpool-ManU, juego ofensivo, brillante y combinativo en todos los campos. Los aficionados españoles viven acomplejados por la arrolladora maquinaria propagandística del torneo británico, pero no tienen nada que envidiar. Click to continue reading...

AP Photo/Manu Fernandez

FC Barcelona got back on track Sunday evening as they completely dominate Zaragoza in a brilliant 6-1 win.

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Sign him up Arsene! A big day's football tomorrow with Manu-Liverpool and our trip to Upton park. Eduardo is fit, Rosicky is not, Bendtner may be. Scott Parker returns from a one match ban for the hammers. Elsewhere Henri Lansbury looks impressive and demonstrated his fitness with a couple of goals on loan at Watford. Click to continue reading...

Sir Alex Ferguson made some scathing remarks about an official after a recent ManU match.� I'm not going to repeat the remarks or even the official's name (because I don't think it's worth it.)� The crux of the matter was :� Sir Alex thought that the official wasn't "in shape" to referee a Soccer match of that caliber.

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Chelsea dropped another one today to Aston Villa (my favorite up and comers) and now ManU sits atop the standings in the Premier League.� This is another one of those instances where "hand" was needed and not used.

Now that Chelsea has dropped to second in the standings they have also allowed Aston Villa to jump to 5th in the standings.

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Nach acht Spieltagen steht der aktuelle deutsche Meister, VfL Wolfsburg, lediglich auf Platz sieben der Tabelle. Bereits jetzt beträgt der Rückstand auf Spitzenreiter Bayer Leverkusen sieben Punkte. Die Leistungen der Wolfsburger waren diese Saison bislang alles andere als schlecht; das Problem ist jedoch, dass bislang zu wenig Zählbares dabei herauskam.

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AP Photo/Manu Fernandez

Rafael Marquez spoke to the media in Mexico as he prepares for international duty with the Mexican national team in World Cup qualifying. Marquez talked about his contract with FC Barcelona which ends in June of 2010.

Marquez has seen less playing time over the past season and a half due to injury and the emergence of Gerard Pique.

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Emmanuel Adebayor is back into Manchester City's lineup a little bit earlier then expected.� The goal scoring forward's suspension for taunting his former club� Arsenal's section of� fans� was recently removed by the FA deeming the strange� goal celebration provoked by the� Gunners� section of the crowd.

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With ManU dropping points today against Sunderland, the table sets up nicely for the winner (if there is one) of the Liverpool Chelsea clash Sunday at Stamford Bridge. As part of my blogging for the Liverpool FC Supporters Club of Chicago, I examine the Liverpool-Chelsea rivalry, from an extremely pro-Liverpool perspective, of course. Click to continue reading...

So, two people seemed set on trying to steal the spotlight away from Arsene Wenger on his big day yesterday.

I will deal with the grotty little being that is Emmanuel Adebayor first poor Emmanuel, (he is named after an angel, you know?) received so much nastiness from those horrid traveling Arsenal fans on that fateful day at Middle Eastlands that it created this massive force field that dragged poor Manu the entire length of the pitch and forced him to his knees, just short of those horrible, mean, beastly Arsenal fans who were saying they liked a little Russian man more than him.

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Well, not as such anyway as he was handed a two game suspended ban, in addition to a £25,000 fine, with the FA saying:

"In reaching its decision, the Commission took into account his (Adebayor's) admission of the charge, public apology and the extremely provocative nature of the abuse he received.

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AP Photo/Manu Fernandez

The ankle injury sustained by Zlatan Ibrahimovic this past weekend against Racing Santander does not look to be as bad as originally feared. The Swedish striker was diagnosed with an ankle sprain following the team victory over Santander and was to miss this weekends match.

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Top 5 teams in the English Premier League Table: Chelsea, ManU, Liverpool, Man City, Aston Villa. Sounds familiar right? It seems the few surprises that we got in the start of the season, were just that, surprises.
This weeks most impressing win was took by Arsenal, after 2 weaker games, team resumed to their level and took 4-0 over Wigan. Click to continue reading...

You can't wait to watch Manchester derby tomorrow in Old Trafford? Are you kind of disappointed because you won't see City's star 'Manu' Adebayor in the pitch? Are you an Arsenal fan fed up with your team's last performances and bored enough to play the first random game you could find? Well, we have this for [. Click to continue reading...

Here are the fixtures:
Burnley v Sunderland
Arsenal v Wigan
Aston Villa v Portsmouth
Bolton v Stoke City
Hull City v Birmingham
West Ham v Liverpool
Man Utd v Man City
Wolves v Fulham
Everton v Blackburn
Chelsea v Tottenham
Again there are two very interesting soccer matches this gameweek as the Manchester teams go against each other and Chelsea welcomes Tottenham. Click to continue reading...

Well I'll tell you. You might have noticed the Valuescore-counter in the top right corner of the site. With that you can count the value of each player in that how much points the player gives when comparing to his price. That of course leads to very expensive players being in disadvantage so keep that in mind when you count valuescore to players like Torres or Lampard. Click to continue reading...

Morning Insiders. Eldo71s' off to the Champions League match today for Arsenalinsider so your stuck with me again to bring you todays new round up and it's all about one person Adebayor. Comment invited below as always.

The Sun - Wenger won't let Manu off hook
ARSENE WENGER just could not get Emmanuel Adebayor out of his mind.

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I had a dream the other night that I'd forgotten to post a WLG? last week. It actually woke me up. I need a vacation...To start us off, Jermain Defoe hops on his bike to put ManU temporarily behind.Ajax handyman Jan Vertonghen blisters a free kick home to the short side.Bayern Munich's Franck Ribéry, however, prefers to go far corner. Click to continue reading...

It should have been a completely glorious day for Manu Adebayor. In Saturday's 4-2 win over Arsenal that kept Man City perfect through four, the livewire strike danced on the ball, cleared his line and buried a header to make it four straight games from go with a goal for the Citizens.Oh yeah, and he ummm. Click to continue reading...