The new Indian League franchise got their squads ready during the week, with a fantasy league type auction.

The six week run tournament, seen each team bid for an "Icon" player and a foreign coach set up in the same style as the Indian one day cricket format currently used to great effect.

Like an outdated fantasy league auction, the new Premier League Soccer featuring six teams based in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal bid for the rights to sign several "icon" players." Hernan Crespo, who scored nine goals for Parma last season, drew the highest bid and went for $840,000 (£536,000) at the sprightly age of 36.

Fabio Cannavaro. Sought after wherever he goes, apparently. Here, he's attracting a bit of interest from local kids in Phnom Penh on January 9th. Image: STR/AFP/Getty Images.

We're not going to get wrapped in the complexities of the newly founded Premier League Soccer tournament in India for two reasons.

By Alan Duffy

"F**king kick him, you ponce" Peter Reid, bringing the beautiful game to the India

Trying to break the massive, all-conquering hold cricket has on India ain't gonna be easy, but the organisers of the new Indian Premier League Soccer tournament are doing their best to get the locals interested by getting a number of ex-greats involved.

by STUART WATSON I really love the F.A Cup, a lot of my boyhood memories derive from the competition whether they be good or bad. A few early ones include the two semifinals at Wembley in the early 90's, Wrexham in 92, Linighans late goal to win us the cup in 93, Andy Walker smashing the ball past David Seaman to give Bolton a historic win at Highbury, and getting knocked out by Millwall and Sheffield United in consecutive seasons.

Penalty FAIL As Thierry Henry and Robert Pires can testify, you really do have to be as good as Johan Cruyff to do this penalty routine because when it goes wrong, it goes very wrong. Uzbekistan U23 striker Aleksandr Geynrikh is the latest player to fall foul of attempting to follow in Cruyff's footsteps.

It has been another crazy week of football and there was no lack of drama with the big four (Plus two more this week). The off field news was way more interesting than the actual football to be honest and so its that time of the week, the time to relive the week that was (n't):

Arsenal:

"I think he will be a good signing, slot him at left back and we will win the league"

- Wenger talks about signing RVP's son

Finally the Arsenal we know are back.

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.

Former Liverpool strikers Robbie Fowler and Fernando Morientes have reportedly agreed to join a revamped Indian football league.
The format, which hopes to replicate the cricketing success of the Indian Premier League (IPL), is apparently attracting stars such as Fabio Cannavaro, Juan Pablo Sorin and Robert Pires.

By Tony Edwards - San Jose, CA (Jan 17, 2012) US Soccer Players -- In Tuesday's edition of the Five Questions, US National Team coach Jurgen Klinsmann talks competition and Tony presents a case study in using Major League Soccer's model in another part of the world. Also, Wilmer Cabrera's exit as U-17 coach and Open Cup changes.

With Martin Luther King's legacy being commemorated across the country, it's an eye-opening shame that blatant forms of racism still exist around the world, specifically in the soccer forum.

Over the weekend, U.S. midfielder Maurice Edu and Rangers teammate Kyle Bartley were the subject of racial abuse via Twitter, an incident that resulted in the arrest of a 41-year-old man who was due to appear in a Scottish court on Monday.

It has just been announced that six teams from India will be starting a new football League, primarily in the West Bengal area, and they are going to have a cricket-style auction of the some top-class veterans including the ex-Arsenal star Robert Pires. Bhaswar Goswami, the executive director of Celebrity Management Group announced that he [.

Featured image: Nicolae Stoian

The next edition of the Philly Soccer Show podcast, scheduled to be recorded tonight, will feature USMNT U-23 coach Caleb Porter and the Philadelphia Union's top pick in Thursday's SuperDraft, Chandler Hoffman.

Philadelphia Union

Sunderland blog the Roker Report tells fellow SB Nation affiliate the Brotherly Game that team manager Martin O'Neill responded to a reporter's question about rumors of a possible Michael Farfan loan by saying people should not read too much "into these things.

The practice of veteran stars seeing out their careers in lesser leagues isn't exactly new, nor is it rare. The Middle East has been using oil-soaked checks to lure eager foreigners for years. And yet, this weekend might just take the cake for odd locations and trail-blazing new football landscapes.

Last year the Indian Football Association announced it would be launching Premier League Soccer in early 2012, with six franchises. The franchises are located in Kolkata, Howrah, Asansol, Midnapore, and Siliguri. When the league was announced, IFA also stated that each team would have one icon player and a maximum of three overseas players and one overseas player from Asia.

Fabio Cannavaro and Robert Pires will be two of the six icon players for the IPL-like Premier League Soccer, to be kicked off in the state from February 25.

Will Thierry Henry start up front with RVP at Swansea on Sunday? Probably not I reckon, AW has stayed coy over his plans but if he didn't start him in the 1-0 win over Leeds in the FA Cup then he's hardly likely to in a Premier League game with three vital points at stake is he? But Henry did make a dramatic goal-scoring cameo in that game.

MLSSoccer.com has a chat with former Reading United star Andrew Wenger, who has signed with Generation Adidas and will go into the MLS amateur draft.

Arsene Wenger really is trying to get Thierry Henry for a two-month loan. Anything Landon can do ... ?

U.S. forward Eddie Johnson has signed with Puebla in Mexico, where DaMarcus Beasley is having such a good season.

Big guns: Aging stars like, from left, Robert Pires, retired Brazilian striker Ronaldo (well, OK maybe it's a little late for him) and Chelsea's Didier Drogba, seen here at a charity game in Hamburg, Germany today, may have less motivation to take MLS money now that China's newly rich have

French great Zinedine Zidane and Brazilian icon Ronaldo put on their annual Match Against Poverty event Tuesday, taking on a team of Hamburg SV All-Stars in Germany, and the legend-laden squad did not disappoint.

Ronaldo scored as part of his team's 5-4 victory, with proceeds from the event going toward combating poverty in the Horn of Africa.

Appreciation

The legends descended on the hallowed turf of the Grove. This is probably the first time that I've ever used hallowed turf and new-ish stadium in the same sentence. For me (and I'm sure many others too), Highbury remained the truly real Arsenal stadium. However, with each match/season and the growing memories, not forgetting the continual Arsenalisation of the stadium, Emirates Stadium is turning into home.

Arsenal's former star Robert Pires has offered the Lyon's midfielder Yoann Gourcuff a way out of the situation he's currently in at the French giants, saying that Arsenal is the best escape route for him. According to Pires, the best way for Gourcuff to come back into the form which made him highly-coveted a few [.

In English football history two teams have in the past gone unbeaten throughout a league season. The team in most recent memory is the Arsenal side of 2003/04.

That Arsenal side registered 26 wins and 12 draws for the campaign and played almost double the games the previous invincible side (Preston North End 1888/89) had played.

Er... Crissy? You wouldn't be checking yourself out on the stadium JumboTron like we were, huh? Image: Julian Finney/Getty Images.

We are to tennis what hats are to Ladies' Day at Grand National. As a matter of fact, we're thinking of upping our court side attendance at more matches in the near future especially at the ones that take place in Madrid and London.

As many will know, we are in the middle of Movember. Yup, in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa and Ireland, chaps are being encouraged to let the above-the-lip stuff grow unchecked for a month.

And this has exactly what to do with the greatest football club in the world (that's us, in case there's any misunderstanding)?

El penalti a la Johan Cruyff causo furor en algun momento, porque se involucraban dos jugadores en su elaboracion y finiquito, de vez en cuando aparecen por ahi jugadores que desean imitar al holandes y humillar a sus rivales, pero tambien frecuentemente salen humillados ellos mismos como Robert Pires y Thierry Henry en el 2006 con el Arsenal.

Robin Van Persie, the Dutch striker whom Arsenal bought from Feyenoord for a little under £3 million pounds, has developed into the most important player at the Emirates. Whilst before he was behind Thierry Henry, and even the likes of Juan Antonio Reyes, in the Arsenal pecking order he has now become the fundamental part and bedrock of this Arsene Wenger side.

One of the more interesting pieces of Aston Villa news to emerge during the international break was the club's intention to include a clause in future contracts that would oblige players to live within 30 miles of Bodymoor Heath. Or at least have a base to use during what constitutes a "working week" for a Premier League footballer.

It would be fair to say I've been mulling over the idea of an Arseblog book for some time. I had thought of releasing a 10 year anniversary tome, with a mix of old and new material, but I've always had big reservations about the 'old' material. It might be nicely packaged but why would, and why should, anyone pay for something they can log onto a website and read for free?

In the wake of Sven Goran Eriksson's opinion that Arsene Wenger would be the ideal next England manager, bookmakers have installed the Frenchman at odds of 25/1 to take over from Fabio Capello when the Italian's contract is up next year.

Needless to say, few people will be in agreement with Eriksson's opinion and anyone with a brain cell will not really believe this will actually happen, moreover there is no way that the Arsenal boss would even consider taking the post (fortunately for England fans).

Former Arsenal player Robert Pires has been speaking to the press about his future in the game and his liking of Lille playmaker Eden Hazard who he thinks is a "very rare" talent. Hazard has been a target for Arsenal for some time now, but reports over the past few weeks have been suggesting that [..

Former Arsenal player Robert Pires has been speaking to the press about his future in the game and his liking of Lille playmaker Eden Hazard who he thinks is a "very rare" talent. Hazard has been a target for Arsenal for some time now, but reports over the past few weeks have been suggesting that [..

Follow the money.

It's a solid rule in sport, whether in prognosticating, betting or choosing one's career path. It also remains true for intriguing storylines.

Anzhi's got some money. They've got some story lines, too like the fact they just named Roberto Carlos player-coach. (In the interim, anyway.

I take you back to the 94/95 season. Arsenal finished 12th in the Premier League. 6 points fewer, and they would have been relegated. It was a season riddled with scandal, with George Graham being sacked for accepting bribes and Paul Merson famously breaking down and admitting his cocaine and alcohol addiction.

By Chris Wright

Inspired by Amir Sayoud's truly piss-poor effort that we had this misfortune of witnessing yesterday (which, by rights, should be at the top of this list), here's our ten-strong run down of the worst penalties of the modern era...

10.

Former Arsenal midfielder Robert Pires believes that manager Arsene Wenger is still the man for the Gunners but needs to change his philosophy if the Gunners are to end a six-year trophyless crisis. Speaking to France ...

Robert Pires won five trophies in his time at Arsenal, but it was not all glory for the Frenchman. He also knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of a hammering at Old Trafford. Pires has been speaking to the magazine France Football about Arsenal and Arsene Wenger. He feels that [...]

Arsenal.com, the official website covering all things Gunners, has a long form interview with their former prodigy, Mr. Steve Zakuani. First noted by @joshuamayers on twitter, Zakuani addresses his national team affiliation as well as growing up within the Arsenal Academy. Considering the attention given lately to the idea of playing his as a forward here's his quote regarding where he played;

I was there for five years and loved every minute.

It's a little over 10 hours to go before the rumour mongers and speculation, erm, spasmos take themselves a much needed break. At least for a fortnight or so, then they'll be back with a vengeance, leading all the way up to the perennially underwhelming January window.
Until then, I thought I'd summarise this summer's movements to date, borrowing from the transfers page, and throw in anything that happens during the course of this afternoon and evening.

It had to happen sometime. Arsenal were like a slow train not really aiming to be 10 minutes too fast to beat off the other competitors. While the rest of the world made way for faster trains, they went their own way, making up ground on an empty piece of track. While rust and the dust accumulated because of stopping at all stations, admiration also grew as the train managed to pick up cargo for a few years in spite of the there being better trains.