And now, the resolution of The Bent Musket's 2011 season grades for the New England Revolution! Corey, Matty, and I have looked at the four major areas of the team - goalkeeping, defense, midfield, forwards - and assigned our grades on a 4.0 scale.

Unfortunately for the New England Revolution, we don't curve based on the rest of the league.

A regular NSC email-writer just jokingly asked me how long it took to research the assists portion of today's Running The Numbers edition of Postcard From Europe, kindly suggesting I may have some treatable psycho-soccer disorder.A: Best I can recall/estimate, somewhere between nine and a dozen hours.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0bPoxFEPRU

Last season Barcelona virtually guaranteed winning La Liga by overcoming Real Madrid at home and then securing a draw in Madrid. No doubt Barca was superior to Los Blancos last season but so far the champions have been inconsistent while Cristiano Ronaldo and his teammates have been on a phenomenal run.

I must say (and, to reiterate from last week, I feel like I haven't much to say anymore these days) that I believe this was one of the better games we've played-at least in quite a while. The midfield looked calm and collected, we held possession pretty much throughout, and in general we looked to have a lot of spark and finesse.

Last night Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scored a hat-trick for the England Under-21′s against Iceland and his performance has earned him high praise from his international boss Stuart Pearce. 'Psycho' as Pearce is more commonly known spoke to Sky Sports News about Oxlade-Chamberlain and said, "He gave us a real cutting edge.

Pearce rules himself out as next England boss

I don't have the experience to succeed Capello next year says Psycho

View the full story here: The Mirror

A news article on 2011-09-28 18:31:50 from: The Mirror

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

Pearce gets two more years as England U21 boss

FA keep Psycho on despite this summer's Euro Championship failure

View the full story here: The Mirror

A news article on 2011-07-11 15:25:10 from: The Mirror

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

England U21 boss Stuart Pearce has reiterated his belief that his England U21 side were good enough to at least reach the Euro U21 finals despite their elimination in the group stages.

The Three Lions were beaten 2-1 by a spirited Czech Republic side who fought from 1-0 down to win 2-1 after Danny Welbeck had given England the led.

By Chris Wright

Psycho's young'ns have got to win their final U21 Euros group game against the Czech Republic on Sunday to progress through to the knock-out stages and, for what it's worth, things are looking rosy in training...

Pass and move, it's the England U21 groove that's Manchester United ragamuffin Tom Cleverly getting the final touch by the way.

The Rajko Lekic transfer saga was sort of the launching pad for this blog. As I was feverishly sifting through badly-translated Danish transfer rumors and posting hour-by-hour updates on his trial and the ensuing negotiations, I reached some of the greatest peaks in visitors and views that I've yet experienced in the short time I have been running The Bent Musket.

By Chris Wright

England U21 coach Stuart Pearce has thrown his hat into the ring and admitted his interest in coaching a prospective Great Britain team at next year's Olympic games.

Pearce told the Times:

"The Olympics don't come around very often in our country.