Ahead of another match between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford this weekend, Alex Ferguson has made his position on the rash of race-related controversies in the game clear. He's surprised by it all and demands firm action.

As Richard Whittall of The Footy Blog points out, the fact that these cases are getting scrutinized and dealt with should be a sign that progress is being made, but Ferguson seems to want more.

What a rough week I have had. My week was similar to Arsenals current form, depressing. Well screw all that, we still had a great week of football. So let me give you a slightly over the top review of the week that wasn't:

Arsenal

It was another dramatic week for the Gunners.

After a blazing start to the season, October, November, and part of December saw a lack of five-star performances from Manchester United. Lulls are inevitable in a long and arduous season, especially when you throw a rash of injuries into the equation, but it's only natural for fans to want to see top-notch performances on [.

Rumours have been rife that Italian giants Juventus are looking to sign Alex from us. Alex himself talked up a move last summer but no deal could be agreed. As a result he stayed here but has hardly featured and as a result handed in a transfer request last week that has been accepted.
It's now believed that Juventus are looking to offer Chelsea £2m for Alex in January knowing that his contract is due to expire at the end of the season.

(Photo: Paul Rudderow)

Editor's note: At the end of the 2010 season, we posted a series of "Raves" about our favorite Philadelphia players. They need not be the team's best players, but they're guys and gals we like. Over the next two weeks, we continue the series again with some of the PSP writers' and contributors' favorite players of 2011.

Let's be honest when it comes to David Luiz everyone has their own opinion (including Gary Neville!). Some people say he should be playing week in, week out. Some people say he shouldn't. Some people think he should be playing at right back and some others believe he should be playing as a holding midfielder.

Last night saw Bolton put out of the Carling Cup by an Arsenal team containing a mixture of new young players with the added bonus of the experienced Arshavin, Benayoun and the return of the Verminator. Many supporters had come to see if Ox, Park and Young could live up to their hype and whether they were ready for the first team.

At last the chance to write about something other than rumour, tittle tattle and economics. And what a game we have today, none of that nerve wrenching, gut mangling, behind the sofa stuff of our last match against the lowlife bottom feeders today we welcome those fine upstanding men from the frozen wasteland of Sunderland, who will be looking to gift us 3 points in their push for relegation.

I'm not even going to begin a debate as to whether Rooney deserves the harsh sentence Uefa has dished out on the temperamental scouser.

Any-one that has read my posts should be aware that I am a Man United fan, something that is undoubtedly looked down upon on this site.

Regardless of who I support, I can remain objective enough to say that Rooney made an inexcusable, rash and stupid mistake.

One person that will split opinion amongst Chelsea fans is Jose Bosingwa. Not the best player defensively compared to others we have at the club, but one of the best attacking defenders, he seems to have established himself as a first team regular this season under AVB.
It's all very different to last season where there had been constant speculation that he would be one of the players to leave the club back in the summer.

What a difference a couple of weeks can make. Fifteen days ago, there was a tangible feeling of gloom around Carrow Road as Norwich City lost by a single goal to a West Bromwich Albion team which had hitherto hardly been setting the Premier League itself. This, we might have rationalise, was exactly the sort of match that Paul Lambert's team needed to be winning if it is to have much of a chance of keeping itself above the dotted line come the end of the season, and it was an opportunity lost.

I respect Sir Alex Ferguson. He's a legend in this beautiful game. Fergie does, however, suffer from a rather irritable case of selective memory loss.

Example of a poor tackle

Ferguson went on the offensive yesterday afternoon with regard to his young, electric Mexican.

Arsenal's defence at full stretch

Three points in the bag. Move up to 11th in the league (still early days to consider any significance of the table). No injuries suffered during the game. No red card accrued during the 90 minutes. Andrey Arshavin opened his accounts for the season and another clean sheet kept by Wojciech Szczesny (not that it was his effort alone, those in front of him helped of course).

Amy Rodriguez's 88th minute goal gave the Philadelphia Independence new hope, as the team pulled even with the Western New York Flash at the end of regular time. It would be for naught, as the Independence eventually fell to the Flash on penalty kicks to lose the 2011 WPS Championship,

An incredibly defensive first half left the score at 0-0, but there were some lowlights to take from those 45 minutes.

Amidst the rash of overwhelming match-fixing cases this summer, Greece was hit pretty hard. One of the clubs found guilty, Olympiakos Volou, was taken from the top of the pyramid all the way down to the fourth division, outside the professional boundaries.

And so the fans responded in the city of Volos itself.

What do Javier Hernandez, Scott Parker and Andy Carroll have in common? They were all players we named as players to watch in the EPL last season! Again, we take a look at upcoming stars and several players who we expect to shine in the season ahead.

- Maxi Rodriguez

There's a certain attraction most people feel towards the Summer months. The heady smell of a just-lit barbeque, the weekend trips to undiscovered nooks of coastline, the sun dresses. The sun dresses! While I certainly enjoy a freshly grilled hotdog while listening to "Blackbird" in front of a dangerously swelling pit fire, the arrival of Summer always brings a rash of unwanted anxieties into my life.

Welcome to the New England Revolution vs. DC United live game thread! It's been just three days since the embarrassing 3-0 drubbing the Revs endured against Philadelphia at home on Sunday, and things have gone from bad to worse in Foxboro as a result. There was a fan protest in the Fort that evening and Benny Feilhaber will be suspended from today's game after receiving a red card ejection against the Union.

Same stadium - new red shirtThe Reds made a curious pair of deals today in that they both seem to represent the beginning of a path to change rather than a conclusion. The club officially announced the acquisition of 29-year-old Canadian international midfielder Terry Dunfield from Vancouver Whitecaps while a deal sending Nana Attakora to San Jose Earthquakes has been announced by the player, but at time of writing yet to be officially announced by TFC.

New York's Strategy Hans Backe utilized a strange formation which emphasized possession of the ball in the center of the pitch. Medhi Ballouchy was employed as a left sided midfielder but too often tucked inside to pick up the ball. Joel Lindpere played mostly in the center in front of Dax McCarty and behind Thierry Henry.

There was a bit of, ahem, intimate defending from Gary Medel in the Copa America the other night, with Gio dos Santos the second dos Santos brother on the wrong end of a genitalia-based indiscretion in the last week or so.

Unfortunately for Gio, as said before, it was Gary Medel, not a hooker.

One of the more significant achievements of Joao Havelange's time in charge of FIFA was to turn the organisation into a financial powerhouse, through merchandising of the World Cup name. The 1982 tournament saw the introduction of corporate sponsorship and the beginning of its conversion into the biggest sporting event on the planet.

Football and schadenfreude are frequent bedfellows. The ability to derive pleasure from the misery of others is a genuine component of supporting a football club. You get a kick seeing your rivals doing poorly and when a player you find particularly distasteful encounters misfortune you take pleasure from it.

I will admit it freely, I was getting tired of hearing about how the injury to Alan Gordon was affecting TFC. It felt like a feeble excuse. I thought he had been a very good player for Toronto, but rather than lament his loss we should be expecting others to raise their game. He was a smart acquisition, but he was not the answer to TFC's scoring woes.

I am beginning to notice a trend.

The New England Revolution released their usual early-week injury report today, and midfielder Ousmane Dabo tops the "Out" list with an adductor strain. He is joined by five other players, two of whom are suffering from muscle strains.

Dabo missed the first eight matches of the 2011 season with a quadriceps strain that he endured on the second day of preseason training.

Many who don't follow the beautiful game intensely would still have made time to catch a game of this magnitude with two teams as highly rated and with such cherished histories as Real Madrid and Barcelona. This game should have been a spectacle not only for the hard core fans of both sides but also for the lovers of football around the world and even for the casual observers.

We don't need no stinkin' ceremony.#5 - One thing that may or may not make you go "Hmm."I wondered when was the last time a USMNT captain started on the bench and then ended up working much of the game with another player still wearing his armband. Sadly, I imagine this answer is too hard to find. But next time it happens, we will all be at the trivia-ready.

Jason and Jared are back to talk Charlie Davies, the rash of injuries picked up by American strikers, Grant Wahl's presidential bid, MLS soliciting for feedback on TV broadcasts, Stu v. Clint, Freddy Adu's good start in Turkey, and MLS in Vegas. Last, but not least, The Ginge comes by to make an announcement you'll want to hear.

In one of the least surprising news stories of the day, Gennaro Gattuso has been charged by UEFA with ‘Gross Unsporting Behaviour' after his clash with Joe Jordan on Tuesday.

After the game, a rash of Joe Jordan stories have cropped up, telling us why Gattuso had picked on the wrong man.

Jason and Jared hit the rash of Americans going out on loan to open the show, including Jason's chat with Turkish soccer expert Ata Dizdar of Turkish Football Weekly to bring us up to speed on Jozy's destination. After the break, Travis Clark DC United beat writer for MLSsoccer.com joins us to discuss Charlie Davies' potential loan.

I logged on to Arsenal.com this morning to news that Laurent Koscielny had earned his first call-up to the French national squad. This is certainly great news and while I'm a fan of the defender I didn't really expect it to come so soon. It could be that Blanc wants to see some new players in action in a friendly before serious games resume.

-Jason Davis
Here's your new American Soccer Show, with the obvious subjects covered plus a little more.
Jared and I start out on USA-Chile, covering our impressions of the match and the players that stood out (both good and bad). We hit the negatives first, then move on to the good things we saw and what they might mean for the future.

Ahh, there is nothing like the FA Cup for a bit of spice is there?

Anyone expecting Leeds to just show up and enjoy the experience of the Emirates were having a laugh. I have seen a couple of Leeds' games this season and they are a more than decent unit (their unbeaten run was only stopped by Cardiff in midweek).