The big news ahead of this evening's game is that Jermain Defoe and Aaron Lennon are back in contention and with Rafael van der Vaart ruled out, both could play from the start.

"Jermain has trained okay in the last couple of days and Aaron Lennon as well, he's coming back, he's looked sharp," said Harry on Friday.

It's widely expected that Louis Saha will make his Spurs bow this evening as there are injury doubts concerning Jermain Defoe, Rafael van der Vaart and Emmanuel Adebayor. However, these are only doubts and as we've seen before this season, these worries have a habit of failing to materialise.

Photo by Howard C. Smith/ISIphotos.com

By DAVE MARTINEZ

New York Red Bulls manager Hans Backe will be able to count on Luke Rodgers after all.

After suffering a lapse in his U.S. visa status that left his future with the Red Bulls up in the air, the English striker is no longer a question mark entering the 2012 MLS season after having his visa approved and renewed.

On Sunday afternoon, Revolution Head Coach Jay Heaps, along with players Benny Feilhaber and Chris Tierney, took part in a conference call with media members.

Along with the adjustment of a new head coach and different formation, a large question mark entering this season is who will provide the offense in the final third of the pitch.

Photo: Paul Rudderow

Philadelphia Union goalkeeper Faryd Mondragon remains a Union player.

A Union official confirmed Sunday that Mondragon is in camp with the Union and said the club has not talked with Deportivo Cali, despite Colombian reports that Mondragon could sign with his hometown club, Deportivo Cali.

Remember our last FA Cup game? One of the great moments in the history of the Emirates. An average performance completely dismissed by 5 seconds of theatre. Today I would love to see a 90 minute performance which will raise the despair around the ground following 3 defeats.

We have to accept that we are not going to be Champions this year yes, even you Peaches.

Remember our last FA Cup game? One of the great moments in the history of the Emirates. An average performance completely dismissed by 5 seconds of theatre. Today I would love to see a 90 minute performance which will raise the despair around the ground following 3 defeats.

We have to accept that we are not going to be Champions this year yes, even you Peaches.

Photo by Stephen Brashear/ISIphotos.com

The U.S. women's national team has been a wrecking crew during its run at CONCACAF Olympic qualifying, but there is still one more piece of business to take care of before it can celebrate.

With a win Friday night over Costa Rica (8 p.

A trip to Wembley and Liverpool's first cup final in nearly five years are on the line on Wednesday, with Manchester City heading to Anfield for the second leg of the League Cup semi-final. Liverpool have a 1-0 advantage from the first leg after a Steven Gerrard penalty capped a dominant opening spell for Kenny Dalglish's squad, but there's little illusion that they'll be able to coast into the final, with City more than capable of turning the tie over.

Photo: Daniel Gajdamowicz

Pauno is gone. That much we know. Le Toux's status? Training with Bolton with the potential of a deal. Basically, completely up in the air. That makes this as good as any to look at the four strikers who will be battling to win playing time throughout 2012.

Photo: Paul Rudderow

With the SuperDraft behind us, thoughts now turn to the nitty-gritty of the 2012 Union season. Naturally, questions arise. Over a two-part series we pose ten questions to our Union beat reporter, Eli Pearlman-Storch, which began with a look formation, roster depth and leadership roles within the starting XI in Part 1.

Fox Sports has kicked off the Timbers' draft day with a bang, reporting that the Portland Timbers have traded star striker Kenny Cooper to the New York Red Bulls for a reportedly large amount of allocation money and a 2013 first round draft pick.

Timbers fans have had mixed feelings about the former US International, as he played below expectations for much of the season, especially in terms of the number of goals he scored in a Timbers kit, when compared to his performance with FC Dallas.

How does one go from a miracle to synthetic grass? This sums up the problem faced by the Lyon squad just a few days after an heroic and historical game that took everyone by surprise.

For that's the big question mark tonight : in what condition will the heroes of Zagreb be in Lorient : back down to earth (or rather to the synthetic pitch with artificial grass of le Moustoir stadium), or still floating somewhere with their minds still in Zagreb, with a heavy hangover after days of partying night and day?

A day after the Revolution declined the options on seven players, the team opened its wallet for long-tenured goalkeeper Matt Reis by signing him to deal that will keep in Foxboro for his 10th consecutive season. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, per MLS policy.

In 2011, Reis made 27 starts, recorded five shutouts and posted a 1.

Following the big win on Saturday at Lazio, there has been a lot of talk about game winner Simone Pepe. A year ago there was a giant question mark in the minds of Juventini about the arrival of the Italian international on loan from Udinese. His career prior to Juventus had been one of uncertainty, as the winger had bounced around for most of his youth until finally stringing a few years together.

This article is straight up guesswork and pure conjecture on my part. Again I am GUESSING, but I think it is a pretty educated guess. I am basing my article on this the article on Portland's website talking about Gavin's travel and specifically on the following quote.

"I've been following a player from Chico for a while," he hinted.

The Philadelphia Union felt the pain of the Expansion Draft for a second year in a row, losing veteran left midfielder Justin Mapp to the Montreal Impact in today's draft proceedings. Mapp became the third Union player ever selected in an Expansion Draft, along with striker Alejandro Moreno (Portland Timbers, traded to Chivas USA) and right winger Shea Salinas (Vancouver Whitecaps).

UPDATE: Guys, this is real. No official confirmation from the team, but...look, you'll have to trust me. It's real.

By now I'm sure you've all read the big news. The Boston Globe reports that Jay Heaps is set to be named the next New England Revolution head coach.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. The scene outside the Revolution locker room on Wednesday brought with it a mixed bag of emotions.

As the players and coaches cleaned out their lockers and carried their belongings to their cars, many were probably relieved to finally put the 2011 season behind them, head home, and relax after tumultuous 34 games.

With the qualifications behind them, Oranje starts their preparation for the EC next summer with two friendlies against Switzerland tonight and Germany on Tuesday.

This coming period will be a period of fierce competition for the question mark players in the squad. And Van Marwijk stating that even a half fit [read more]

Liverpool v Manchester United – preview

Two weeks after beating Everton in the Merseyside derby at Goodison the Reds (that's the ‘Reds' of Liverpool, not the ‘Red Devils' of Stretford) today take on Manchester United at Anfield. Kenny Dalglish told his press conference audience that "everyone" was fit for the match but with some of the squad away on international duty since that derby win, some only returning as late as Thursday morning, there hasn't been much time to prepare and that may play a part in which team is selected.

Nemanja Vidic hasn't played for Manchester United since the opening day of the season against West Brom.

Jonny Evans, Chris Smalling and Phil Jones have all played their part in defence since, but after playing 90 minutes for Serbia this week, Sir Alex Ferguson is wondering whether Vidic is ready to start against Liverpool tomorrow.

Stewart Downing got off to a flying start for Liverpool, coming out against Sunderland, Arsenal, and Bolton as not just one of the club's better players of the early going but potentially the long sought answer for the left side of midfield. Then, as quickly as he'd seemed to establish himself, in the eyes of many he became a question mark.

We looked at the long odds of the Chicago Fire making the playoffs just three weeks ago and things were looking very bleak. The enthusiasm balloon for playoffs became even more deflated when a lifeless Fire squad lost to the San Jose Earthquakes 2-0. Thanks to three straight victories and form that suggests the San Jose game was just a blip on the radar, the Fire find themselves in a decent spot to be like Mary Tyler Moore and make it after all.

Morning all,

I spent the last few minute sipping my coffee, which was delicious, and reading the quotes from Kieran Gibbs. He says, rightly enough, that we make too many mistakes, but that the mistakes are due to our attacking nature. He also says the players need to get behind the manager because what he's done is incredible and says that the team are united and working hard to put the difficult times behind them.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Someone (me) once said (just now, for real) that American soccer is a question in search of a question mark. But who asked that question, and what other punctuation might it contain? To find out, we deployed two brilliant young sportswriters, the latest in electronic-communications technology, and the copy-paste function.

Roy Keane has warned Manchester United's title rivals that his former club will "only get stronger".
Keane said United were "red hot favourites" for the Premier League and believes only an injury to Wayne Rooney could pose a serious problem.
Keane, 40, who was sacked as Ipswich manager in January after 20 months in charge, told BBC Radio 5 live's Sportsweek: "United to me are just going to get stronger and they are the team to beat as usual.

Roy Keane has been very complimentary of his former club today, claiming that thanks to the quality of the academy, we'll only continue to improve.

"United to me are just going to get stronger and they are the team to beat as usual," said Keane. "At reserve and academy level, they have got such good young players coming through.

For the MISL and its newest franchises to consider the upcoming 2011-2012 season a success they will have to increase attendance across the board.
Last season the Baltimore Blast led the way with the highest total and average attendance figures. The former Chicago franchise, Chicago Riot, where the worst of all coming in dead last in total (not even breaking 10k) and averaging a 1/6 of league leaders Baltimore.

There have been several changes of personnel at Spurs since our last Premiership game and the club website has confirmed that Emmanuel Adebayor and Scott Parker will both make their debuts against Wolves tomorrow.

"Scott is ready to play and Emmanuel is short of games, but he's a naturally fit guy and again, ready to play," said manager Harry Redknapp.

It was a sobering day for Arsenal's fans at Old Trafford today as they witnessed the systematic dismantling of their "talented" team at the hands of a group of players who have taken over their mantle as the best young team in the Premiership. The final score of 8-2 savagely exposed all of Arsenal's shortcomings that have been simmering under the surface for a couple of seasons now.

Having brought Harry Kane, Tom Carroll and Andros Townsend into the 18 man squad for tonight's return leg against Hearts, the exact line up is harder than most to predict.

What we do know is that Huddlestone and Modric are doubtful while King, Sandro, Pienaar, Rose, Gallas and Palacios are definitely out.

A young Manchester United side defeated Tottenham Monday night in what was the North London sides first run out in the EPL this season. After having their opening game called off at home against Everton, Spurs fans had to wait until the last day of week two to see their team involved.

And it wasn't an enjoyable start for the Lilywhites as Manchester United were as ruthless as they were clinical.

Okay, fine, I've been gone for a while. Like, a while. At least I can tell you that, in the past seven weeks, I've learned that the Israeli soccer league is surprisingly good, and that mixing Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa is a serious no-no. Yes, I've been in the Promised Land for the past two months, and, I know, I probably should have told someone, but hey, at least not all of my readers have disappeared, right?

Photo by Michael Janosz/ISIphotos.com

The Los Angeles Galaxy followed an unexpected slip-up with perhaps their most important victory of the season, and as a result, they maintain the top spot in the SBI MLS Power Rankings.

After fending off FC Dallas to create some separation in the race for the Supporters' Shield, L.

Good afternoon! Finally, our team is back in MLS action tonight, @Rio Tinto Stadium, against the always tough Real Salt Lake (9:00pm ET, MSG). This is a match-up of two desperate teams, with both RBNY & RSL in danger of missing out on the playoffs if full points aren't picked up quickly.

With the division in general overviewed by Ian yesterday, it's time for the second of three of the official twohundredpercent Football League pre-season previews. For those that haven't seen League Two's preview, we've gone about them slightly differently this season. With the transfer window affecting some managers psychologically to the point that they build their team by the end of the transfer window, rather than the start of the season, predicting how it all ends up before teams have finalised their squads is tricky.

Tonight's CONCACAF Champions League preliminary round game is about as big as they get in early August. Failure to win tonight's game -- likely by at least two goals -- would represent a rather massive failure on the part of the Seattle Sounders, a team that takes this tournament as seriously as anyone in MLS.

A giant question mark is lodged deeply over the head of Brad Friedal.
This pertains to the new Tottenham signing's performance last season. More explicitly, his performance fell of a cliff. Oh, and Tottenham just signed him and seem prepared to start him ahead of the error-prone but better Heuerelho Gomes.

Stephen Warnock Close to Liverpool Return

Stephen Warnock is rumoured to be close to a move back to Liverpool amidst reports that a mystery ex-player could be set for an Anfield return. The 29-year-old has returned to top form of late and is thought to have caught the eye of Kenny Dalglish as he looks to bolster his defensive options.