This really shouldn't come as much of a surprise, but the Seattle Sounders are close to hiring Kasey Keller to be their color commentator for the 2012 MLS season, according to Joshua Mayers. A color commentator spot seemed to be Keller's most likely role with the team ever since he retired and made it clear that he he hoped to remain with the Sounders in some capacity.

Manchester City and AC Milan in Carlos Tevez talks, What the back pages say

Manchester City have held fresh talks with Milan to try to reach a compromise that will allow the Premier League leaders to remove Carlos Tevez from their payroll.

View the full story here: The Mail

A news article on 2011-12-23 08:40:44 from: The Mail

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

After the live Q&A session Seattle Sounders FC committed to answering the rest of the questions that were submitted by Alliance members. Many of these passed through my hands at some point, though not all. Several had to be condensed together as they covered similar issues. But in the final versions of the questions as submitted to the club through the Council or through twitter submissions they answered.

I was tracking this, but clearly doing do slightly late: Edson Buddle's agent just tweeted (sweet Moses, I hate that website) that his client is set to trial at West Ham United. It seems the new Ingolstadt coach is looking to shed payroll, hence the early winter vacation for the US international.Don't worry, I still have enough to complete the eight days of goodies for you.

What do commanding possession, similar number of shots and shots on goal, and a lower payroll get you? A loss. Arsenal loses to a steam rolling Citeh on a 2nd half Silva goal. Can noone stop Citeh right now?Video: FoxSports
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Scheming for support and ticket sales is one of sport's greatest traditions. Most of them take a more traditional route, such as standard marketing. None of those methods likely involve bringing Akon to Blackburn.

But give those chicken men some credit, because they tried to try. And clearly failed.

The Boston Red Sox have officially hired Bobby Valentine to become the team's new manager. The energetic, always-talking and never-dull Bobby V will undoubtedly breathe life back into a franchise that lost its direction last season.

Valentine's last managing job was with the New York Mets. Since then, he's been busy becoming a legend in the Japanese leagues, where he led a lowly team to a championship.

Today's Expansion Draft and Waiver Draft kicked off the MLS offseason today. The New York Red Bulls waived six seldom seen players today: Alex Horwath(1 G, 90 Min), Mike Jones (1G, 1 Min), Tyler Lassiter, Marcos Paullo, John Rooney (5 G, 48 Min), and Teddy Schneider. Collectively, this frees up two international slots, five off-budget slots, and $289,000 in salary cap.

By AVI CREDITOR

The Los Angeles Galaxy won the Supporters' Shield, amassing the most points over the course of the MLS season, thus earning any and all advantages heading into the postseason.

Their reward: two cross-country trips in a four-day span for a two-legged tie against the only team in the league that can go head-to-head in a bare-knuckles payroll battle.

Liverpool owner John W Henry concedes he may have overspent on some players, but believes it was important to put down a marker.
Since completing a takeover at Anfield in October 2010, the Fenway Sports Group has pumped £110.5million into the pursuit of fresh faces.
The likes of Andy Carroll, Luis Suarez, Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing have been snapped up for big money, with the Reds aware of the need to spend in order to compete.

Liverpool may have overpaid for players, suggests John W Henry

• Henry was initially unconvinced about Dalglish • Liverpool have spent £110.5m on players since January John W Henry, the principal owner of Liverpool, has suggested his Fenway Sports Group has overpaid for players, particularly in Boston and also in Liverpool, since they bought the football club a year ago this Saturday.

Photo: Earl Gardner

Whenever the Major League Soccer Players Union releases players' salary numbers, it's usually the rare opportunity to step back and see who's worth their salary and who's not. So that's exactly what we're going to do here, with a look at each Union player's salary and evaluation of whether they're worth it or not.

According to a report from Business Insider on MLS spending, the Philadephia Union are tenth in salary for the 2011 season.

The numbers that Business Insider used are probably from the beginning of the season, when former striker Carlos Ruiz was still on the Union's payroll. A graph within the article lists the Union at $3.

London, Manchester, Tottenham, and Birmingham are synonymous as classic Soccer locations, but this week they are recognized as places of disturbance and uncertainty.
Riots in England have reached an alarming level.

It's been a while since anything surfaced here at Aston Villa Central, I know. The last post confirmed Ashley Young's somewhat low key move to Man Utd and since then very little of substance has actually happened. Well, the Stewart Downing "situation" has threatened to develop into a "saga", but aside from a couple of actual bids from Liverpool being reported, nothing has changed yet; Downing is still an Aston Villa player.

Many of us had hopes that we were going to do some significant house cleaning this summer, with a number of players leaving, as well as many coming in. I think it's safe to say at this point, we're not headed for a very big turnover. The fact that we're likely to hang on to a lot of the so-called "dead weight" on the team has been driven home to me in a number of ways this week.

Seattle Sounders fans are going to get hammered with trialists and rumors over the next month. The lead up to this Summer's window is going to be fast, furious and ideally fortunate. Adrian Hanauer has some cap room to play with, a DP slot available, and MLS has slightly higher respect than it did four years ago.

There is loads of speculation surrounding Samir Nasri at the moment.
Will he, or won't he, sign a new contract at Arsenal? I don't know to be honest because I'm not a psychic, his mind, or his agent.
What I do know is Nasri needs to be careful. He needs to be careful because things can change rather quickly.

Article republished on businessofsoccer.com

Earlier this month, Major League Soccer announced and released the first official Castrol Index for MLS. The Castrol Index objectively ranks a player's performance. It analyzes and tracks every players move, providing statistical data and analysis to fans, players and coaches throughout the season.

Major League Soccer Players Union released salaries and compensation for all players earlier this month. There were few surprises throughout the report as well as few additions to the top of the compensation table in the league.

Despite the trend of past seasons, 2011 proves to be the league's time to take one step back with regards to player compensation as the Reserve League is reintroduced, significantly increasing the pool of available players.

This is seemingly something of a worrying fad, this 'getting trophy tattoos before said trophy is actually won'. Borussia Dortmund at least had one hand on the trophy. The FA Cup? It's a one-off game where anything can happen.

Granted, Man City are huge favorites and should win it, but that doesn't make this gentleman any less of an absolute idiot.

Omar Cummings continues to be one of the most underpaid players in MLS. (Getty Images)

I mentioned on Saturday a few items on the salaries that were released but I wanted to take it a step further today and go with a team-by-team approach here to see who's doing things right and who's wasting their money.

I remember, way back when I was little, making "clouds" in school for a science experiment.

They didn't cost $500,000 a puff. Very little does, unless an anti-doping agency is knocking for the ominous post-game pee test.

Of course, they weren't trying to save a World Cup, either, which is what Qatari scientists have offered as yet another solution to the oppressive summer heat in the Middle East's summer.

No one can fault the Seattle Sounders for being shy when it comes to signing Designated Players. In just their third year of MLS existence, they have already signed four DPs, more than any other team.

That two of them have ended in rather spectacular fashion, most recently Blaise Nkufo's departure being announced just hours before First Kick, you could be excused for thinking the Sounders may be getting a little gun shy.