For all the crisis talk, it hasn't been a bad fortnight for Arsenal. At half time against Villa, we were staring down the barrel of a fourth successive defeat, and an early exit from a competition that was beginning to open up thanks to some high profile ties that we had managed to avoid. Since then, we have seen actual mental strength (as opposed to the professed type that leaves us scratching our heads in disbelief) in that comeback win, a match against Bolton which, while frustrating from a result point of view, was a sharp improvement in performance on those that had come before, and a thumping seven goal win over a Blackburn side that inflicted perhaps our most painful defeat of the season back in September (yes, I count that 4-3 loss as worse than the United hammering).

It's ok... I've got it...Liverpool make the short trip up the M62 on Saturday to face their North West rivals Manchester United. After knocking United out of the FA Cup last month Liverpool will certainly feel like they have a great chance on Saturday despite the match being played on United's home turf.

Liverpool travel to Manchester and Old Trafford to face United for the second time in two weeks in a match that, depending on your resting heart rate, is either mildly exciting or something that's possibly life threatening. There's as much to cover off the pitch as there is on, but for everyone's sanity we'll try to just do the football.

Real Madrid continue to top the global football financial league table taking top spot ahead of their Spanish rivals Barcelona for a seventh consecutive year. Combined revenues of the top 20 Deloitte Football Money League clubs exceed €4.4bn to defy European economic woes.

It has, as many of you will already be aware, been a long few months for the supporters of Kettering Town Football Club. During this period, their club has been uprooted to the former home of their defunct former local rivals, they have been promised the earth and have seen only the delivery of unpaid bills and an uphill battle to avoid relegation from the Blue Square Bet Premier.

Hoyte-y toity The undoubted highlight of Sunderland's extra-time FA Cup victory over local rivals Middlesbrough last night was this bizarre slide tackle on Boro defender Justin Hoyte from a pitch invader. A couple of morons ran onto the pitch. One of them lost his footing behind Hoyte and ended up sliding through the back of [.

The transfer window might be over but that is not stopping a number of clubs from actively pursuing summer targets. After an amazing 7-1 victory over Blackburn on Saturday, Arsenal manager has immediately turned his attention back to weightier issues stating that his interest for Lille player Eden Hazard has not waned.

...well that's according to our favourite newspaper the Daily Mail anyway!. Being a Chelsea fan, hardly a day goes by without reading a ridiculous headline from this lot as they look to fill their pages and websites with headlines to grab peoples attention with little basis for the story!.
In this instance, they claim the following:

Chelsea face a battle to keep Daniel Sturridge after Arsenal took significant steps towards a shock summer swoop.

Inigo Lopez grabbed a late winner for Granada to give their La Liga survival hopes a big boost as they beat local rivals Malaga on Monday.

Malaga had the better early exchanges as the game started at a fast and furious pace with first Enzo Maresca then Rondon shooting high and wide from good positions in the opening minutes.

Being slightly fearful of numbers, I'm not sure how the old recipe for success of 'win at home and draw away' stands up in modern times, now we have this new-fangled three points for a win, but right now it will do for me. As against Man City, against the Pool we stood up to the considerable pressure exerted by our rivals near the top of the league, emerging with great credit and in this case a point too.

Ahead of United's game against Liverpool at the weekend, Kenny Dalglish has created even more ill-feeling by claiming that Luis Suarez, who was found guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra, shouldn't have been banned.

"We don't think he should ever have been away but we are delighted to get him back," he said.

"Who can follow a man like you as manager of United?" asked a journalist looking for a sound bite that he could relay across England. "Oh I don't know about that," replied Sir Matt Busby in a thick Scottish accent with a proud smile across his face.

The year was 1969.

It's understandable why it's forgotten even amongst the staunchest Manchester United supporters.

Liverpool are in the midst of a mini-resurgence at the moment; the Carling Cup Final awaits; hated-rivals Man United were recently dispatched with ease in the FA Cup, and it was back to winning ways in the premier league against Wolves last week. Things are definitely looking bright, but the plain fact is Liverpool are still seventh in the league, five points behind fourth placed Chelsea in.

Ahead of this afternoon's game against Chelsea, Darren Mantle from CFCNet has taken the time to talk to us on all things Chelsea.

Scott the Red: Does your current league position match with your expectations at the start of the season or had you been anticipating a serious title challenge from Chelsea?

On Tuesday, the Manchester City official website claimed that they had already sold out the weekend's fixture against Fulham. This obviously came as a surprise, given that just 30,000 blues bothered to show up for their League Cup semi-final against Liverpool a few weeks ago, with tickets being sold for as little as a tenner on the day.

There will be some very tense nerves in West London this weekend ahead of Chelsea's super clash with rivals Manchester United at Stamford Bridge this Sunday. A couple of years back, this would have been just another day in the office for the Blues, however, things have changed drastically.

In fact, things are so bad for the Blues that a 3rd place finish for them would be amazing.

I bet Bob Bradley had not anticipated this when he took over as coach of the Pharaohs last year. Needless to say, it is very sad what happened in Egypt earlier this week.

A league match pitting rivals Al-Masry and Al-Ahly at Port Said turned tragic when 73 fans were killed when violence broke out after Al-Masry 3-1 win.

Match Report Video By the numbers

I know for many people the word they might use to sum up this Arsenal season would be stronger, much stronger, than 'frustrating', but that's what seems to fit for me this morning.

On Tuesday night Chelsea, our main rivals for 4th spot, dropped two points against Swansea.

Following the final whistle on Tuesday, Darron Gibson was beaming about the winning goal he scored against Manchester City. Not only did he push Everton in to the top half of the table, but he also put United on equal points with City at the top.

"I know my phone will be packed with texts from United," he said.

No doubt you've already seen the horrendous footage of Al Masry fans storming the pitch to attack Al Ahly players and supporters. In case you haven't, it's in the video above. Absolute carnage broke out when Al Masry secured a 3-1 victory over their fierce rivals. The home fans many of them armed [.

The past few days have altered the landscape of MLS, the Western Conference and, specifically, Cascadia. While many of us have always believed that the West was much stronger than the East, the amount of talent that has flooded in during the past week alone has only strengthened that belief.

Let's review: The Portland Timbers have added Kris Boyd, the leading scorer in Scottish Premier League history; the Vancouver Whitecaps traded for Sebastien Le Toux, who's contributed to 45 goals over the past two seasons; and the LA Galaxy brought back Edson Buddle, who scored 19 goals during the 2010 season.

By Chris Wright

Whereas I'm pretty sure it would have still gone in on the other side of Joe Hart's goal, Darron Gibson's heavily deflected winner against Man City last night saw his old club Manchester United go level on points with their rivals at the summit of the Premier League pretty much making his goal last night the best thing he ever did for United, indeed they were chanting his name 30 miles away at Old Trafford when the news broke.

By Alan Duffy

Manchester United 2-0 Stoke City Premier League 31st January 2011

A penalty kick either side of half-time was enough to give an under-par United side a vital win at Old Trafford on Tuesday night, a victory that sees them go level with title rivals City at the top of the table.

Barcelona have been the scourge of Manchester United in Europe over recent campaigns but now the Spanish giants will not have the chance to scupper the Red Devils' chances of bring home silverware from the continent.
United fans will be disappointed their side failed to make the knockout stages of the Champions League but based on their performances in the group stage, the Premier League title holders did not really deserve to get through.

According to the Manchester Evening News, Manchester United have signed Freddie Veseli from Manchester City.

The 19-year-old central defender joined the club in 2008 but has become frustrated by the lack of first team opportunities. He made his debut for the club in a pre-season friendly in the summer but when the dreadful Stefan Savic got the nod ahead of him during Vincent Kompany's absence, the Veseli clearly realised it was time to leave.

Wilman Conde is back in MLS with the Red Bulls. (Getty Images)

This news had been around for some time. The New York Red Bulls and the Chicago Fire finally made it official today though. Wilman Conde is finally going to the Big Apple.

The fun part about this deal however is that it is really a few years too late.

Having already qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics by winning Friday's game versus Costa Rica, the USWNT's win over Canada in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament was the icing on the cake. The Canadian side came into tonight's match with a lot of confidence, but when it came time to perform, fell quite short.

Sir Alex Ferguson does not concede that Liverpool were deserved winners in their 2-1 win over Manchester United on Saturday and the Scot believes that the league champions should still be in the FA Cup based on the performance at Anfield.

United fought back from a goal down as Ji-Sung Park equalized Daniel Agger's headed opening goal at Merseyside but it was all in vain for the visitors as Dirk Kuyt scored late to ensure progress for the hosts.

And so the Carlos Tevez saga continues linked to Inter, AC Milan, PSG, and now Liverpool. The club have apparently had a bid for Tevez rebuffed and hardly surprising given that they are rumoured to have offered Andy Carroll in a straight swap for the player.

I know Tevez is hard work and a bit of a cry baby at times, but I know who I'd rather have in my team, City would've been mad to do a like-for-like swap, although with the money at their disposal I doubt they'd really mind, plus Carroll can be decent when playing as a target man but I can't see that City would really need to resort to that with the quality of players at their disposal.

Barcelona might have won the latest el clasico, but it is Real Madrid who are threatening to run away with the La Liga title.

Real Madrid are now seven points clear at the top of the Liga after their 3-1 win over bottom side Real Zaragoza while Barcelona's poor away form continued as they were held to a scoreless draw at Villarreal.

Both Chelsea and QPR decided there would be no customary handshake before the game as John Terry and Anton Ferdinand met for the first time since their controversial racism scandal when last they met. And there was more controversy as referee Mike Dean gave Chelsea a 62nd minute penalty after England striker Daniel Sturridge dived in the area, fooling the official into thinking QPR defender Clint Hill fouled the Chelsea cheat.

During today's FA Cup game at Anfield, Liverpool fans booed Patrice Evra every time he touched the ball. His crime? Being racially abused by Luis Suarez in the last game between the two clubs.

One Liverpool fan was caught on camera doing a monkey impression when Evra was on the ball. "This matter is now under investigation by specialist hate crime detectives and we are working with Liverpool Football Club to identify the man in question.

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Picture from Yolkie

"PICTURE: Liverpool Fan In Monkey Gesture At Evra" was originally published at The Republik of Mancunia.

Ahead of the it being confirmed that Luis Suarez had racially abused Patrice Evra, Kenny Dalglish claimed that the guilty party should be punished. That would mean if Evra couldn't prove he was innocent, he should be punished for making the accusation.

Liverpool players then warmed up in t-shirts in support of Suarez and once Suarez was found guilty, showed no remorse.

On the weekend just past the Spanish daily newspaper, Marca, released what they claimed to be an exclusive. The newspapers football journalists had found out that Jose Mourinho, the Real Madrid coach, was dissatisfied with the level of hostility targeted in his direction and believing that his work was not recieving the plaudits he felt it welcomed he was going to leave his position at the end of the current season.

Ahead of this weekend's FA Cup game against Liverpool, Andy Cole has reflected on his time playing for United at Anfield.

Cole scored at Anfield in our 3-1 win in the 1996-1997 season, scored two there the following season, and again in 1999.

"When I was in the team I used to love playing at Anfield," he told the official site.

Mike Phelan has insisted Manchester United would not consider leaving Patrice Evra out of their game against Liverpool if he is fully fit.
United's FA Cup fourth-round tie with Liverpool will be the first time they have faced their old rivals since Evra levelled racism allegations at Luis Suarez that ended with the Uruguay forward landing an eight-match ban.

Arsenal legend Alan Smith has criticised current manager Arsene Wenger's recruitment policy, which he believes could cost the Gunners a UEFA Champions League spot at the end of the season. The retired striker, who has now turned to commentating, also believes that Wenger should have pursued central defender Gary Cahill more aggressively before he was signed by their London rivals Chelsea earlier this month.

Gary Smith is the new Stevenage manager. It doesn't come as any surprise that Smith has been appointed as he has been the favourite for the position over the last week or so. He was even in the main stand watching his new side beat play-off rivals MK Dons 4-2 earlier tonight. News of his appointment broke soon after and the Harlow born coach is set to be the man given the task of replacing Graham Westley and continuing Boro's promotion push.

"PICTURE: Ferguson's Letter To Fans Ahead Of Anfield" was originally published at The Republik of Mancunia.