In a friendly training ground scuffle between John Terry and Fernando Torres, you would probably expect Terry to beat the freckles out of Torres. But that would underestimate the pent-up ferocity of a man who is physically incapable of scoring goals. After getting tossed off the ball by Terry, Torres hunts him down and chucks him like a rag doll before taking the ball back.

The past couple of weeks have filled Fire fans heads with visions of sugar plums dancing around (or in this case world class players running around and scoring goals in Fire red). I have to admit, the Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack rumors got me excited. Most sane fans (including myself) knew these rumors were extremely far-fetched at best and a product of extremely shoddy journalism at worst.

By Alan Duffy

"You see this smile on my face? It's only for the cameras, ok? I genuinely despise you"

Currently doing a spot of pre-season training in Spain with new club Shanghai Shenhua, Le Sulk, Nicolas Anelka, has described the hell he had to endure during his final days at Chelsea.

Liverpool's goalless draw with Spurs on Monday night once again underlined the pressing need for Kenny Dalglish to buy a striker capable of *regularly* scoring goals. Last week, Anfield legend Steve Nicol argued that Fulham's Clint Dempsey could do a good job for one of the league's top sides, and now he has gone one step further and suggested that Liverpool should actually think about buying him

I wondered being honest, how long it would take until we heard from either Nico Anelka or Alex after their departures from Chelsea back in last month's transfer window and it hasn't taken long.
The Sun over here in the UK leads with an interview Anelka has given about the end of his Chelsea career and claims he was left to rot with the reserves.

Two goals within the first five minutes of the start of the second half gave Chelsea a 3-0 lead over Manchester United at Stamford Bridge. That used to be an insurmountable advantage, but not anymore. Referee Howard Webb awarded Man United two penalties in an 11-minue span that Wayne Rooney put away before substitute Chicharito made it 3-3 with a header in the 84th minute.

Be great if he scored!...Liverpool welcome Tottenham to Anfield Monday night as they look to continue their good run of form and pick up some more points in the League. With Luis Suarez completing his ban, the Anfield faithful can't wait to see him back on the pitch, an extra threat for Spurs to be aware of.

Former Rep of Ireland u-21 striker Eamon Zayed (28) became a hero for his new Iranian club Persepolis Tehran after he scored a late,late hat-trick to secure a 3-2 win in the Tehran derby last night.

Persepolis trailed 2-0 with just nine minutes remaining on the clock before Zayed found his scoring boots to fire a hat-trick in just over 10 minutes.

Official D.C. United Press Release:
D.C. United acquires forward Hamdi Salihi as Designated Player
28-year old Albanian international has scored 163 goals in 289 professional matches
Washington, D.C. (February 2, 2012) – D.C. United announced today the club has signed 28-year old forward Hamdi Salihi as a Designated Player.

One thing I have noticed in recent weeks is the lack of real chances we are creating for ourselves. The thing is, because of this happening, the likes of Danny Sturridge (as he demonstrated yesterday) have taken a selfish approach to his game and is shooting whenever he gets the ball in or around the box rather then lift his head up and look for a killer pass or to create a chance for someone else.

The Ox in the box will be quick as a fox to knock of Villa's socks

Jack Wilshere was set for a return mid February setting the medical world abuzz with his miraculous return. Then he suffered a stress fracture in the same ankle during training and now the story is he's lost for the rest of the season or at least a good portion of it.

One day Robbie Keane will write/dictate his autobiography, and it will be filled with fantastic stories of playing football for some major clubs, living in Italy and the USA and full of scoring goals. Keane marked his full Aston Villa ...
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Football is supposed to be a glamourous career. Scoring goals in front of adoring fans and all that crap. Not if you're name is Khairul Amri it ain't though.
The poor bastard spends most of his time injured. He's 27 in March, should be at the peak of his powers but guess what? He's gonna be out for the next 12 weeks with another injury.

In the summer of 2006 Manchester United were written off. Chelsea had just won the league with ease and added one of the best players in the world for each position to their squad. Ashley Cole, Michael Ballack and Andriy Shevchenko joined them, whilst in contrast we sold our top scorer, Ruud van Nistelrooy, and didn't replace him, and brought in Michael Carrick, who was hardly the midfield general the fans had been hoping for.

Fernando Torres has certainly been putting in the hard work on the training pitch for Chelsea, with this hard graft appearing to pay dividends in recent games during which he has almost been able to capitalise upon the absence of Didier Drogba by displaying a few good performances up front, but Torres has still failed to win over the Chelsea fans by doing the one job that is expected of him: scoring goals.

Joe Corona appears destined for a big 2012 as he continues to contribute for Club Tijuana while becoming a bigger part of the U.S. national team set-up. All of that is on the heels of what was just recognized as a pretty sharp 2011.

The 21-year-old Corona won the Golden Ball as Mexico's top rookie, beating out finalists Alfonso Luna (Atlante), Armando Zamorano (Jaguares) and Hector Herrera (Pachuca) to take home the award.

Moussa Sow has come out and said he wants to play in the Premier League and he describes the opportunity of joining Liverpool as his 'Dream Move'.

Sow was last season's top scorer in Ligue 1, scoring 25 goals. He would help fill the massive void in Liverpool's attacking options.

He told Sky Sports: "I am at Lille now but as we all know I want to play in England one day.

Lille forward Moussa Sow has spoken of his admiration for Liverpool, amidst rumours that the 25-year-old is thinking of leaving the French champions during the January transfer window.
Sow was the top scorer in Ligue 1 last season with 25 league goals as he helped his side win the title but in recent weeks reports have suggested that he may look to leave and now the Senegal international has spoken in glowing terms about Liverpool.

As we saw against Stoke earlier today, Liverpool are still crying out for a 'fox in the box' goal-poacher; a Robbie Fowler-type player with a knack for scoring goals regularly. With that in mind, Spurs manager Harry Redknapp confirmed today that several clubs are interested in Jermain Defoe, who is 'disappointed' with the way things are going for him at Spurs.

They've been pretty battered in the last couple of weeks, so it's no wonder that Man United brought their A Game and fans to the City of Light last night. Unfortunately, any game between City and United has been classified as 'Category C' which is the "highest security grade" by British police who put riot police on standby in the event of trouble.

Football resumed in Spain after the short winter break, and it did not take long for the first upset of 2012 to occur, as a late equalizer from Espanyol in the Barcelona derby dented Barca's title hopes.

Real Madrid started off 2012 like they ended 2011, scoring goals. This week Madrid beat Granada 5-1 with Karim Benzema scoring twice and Cristiano Ronaldo hitting his 21st league goal of the season.

Remember USA '94? Remember Brazil scoring goals and then acting out that rock-the-baby celebration? If your answers to the above two questions are yes then the video above is certain to make you feel old. It is currently the season break in Brazil, but football fans have been watching the Sao Paulo Junior Cup, trying [.

Photo courtesy of UCSB Media Relations/Adam Caira

By ADAM SERRANO

It's not hard to recognize the talent of UCSB midfielder Luis Silva.

A dynamic playmaker with a penchant for scoring goals from anywhere on the field, Silva is considered to be a top-10 pick in the 2012 MLS SuperDraft.

It will apparently take a lot more than what FC Sochaux was offering to pry Maurice Edu away from Rangers.

The Scottish club emphatically turned down Sochaux's bid for the U.S. national team midfielder a day after a reported offer of £500,000 was put on the table.

"What I would say is the bid that they put in was so far away that I would be very surprised if they came back in," Rangers manager Ally McCoist told the BBC.

Newcastle's prolific goalscorer Demba Ba reveals his naughty secret to scoring goals to Sky Sports reporter Geoff Shreeves.

Oh fuck me. The FA Cup is back.

Now, I'm not one of those EPL-centric, footballing-history-started-in-1992 type people. I just hate the FA Cup. I hate how misused the FA Cup is in terms of broadcasting (both online and televised).

Last March I wrote a post about how College Basketball's March Madness is presented in America.

Video: GOTD: Howard scores amazing Goal
Oh, you know... just another day at the office for Tim Howard. Saving shots and scoring goals.
Wait, what? Did you say score? Yuppers.
So to recap. AMERICAN Landon Donovan starts for Everton and AMERICAN Tim Howard scores a goal.

Jamie Redknapp has called on some of Liverpool's goal-shy players to step up and fill the void left by Luis Suarez.
The Uruguayan - Liverpool's top scorer this season with eight goals - will miss the club's next seven games after they chose not to appeal against his suspension for racially abusing Manchester United defender Patrice Evra.

Like all responsible pet owners, we left our snark in the office over New Year. We ensured it had adequate food, water and celebrity list programmes to see it through the night, with the TV turned up loud to avoid firework-related outbursts.

We were concerned that it might be sulking today and therefore refuse to contribute to the first results post of 2012, but you'll be relieved to see it's in fine form and frolicking around our captions like nothing had even happened.

Aston Villa manager Alex McLeish insists that striker Darren Bent will not be sold in the transfer window.
Following his team's 3-1 victory away to Chelsea in which Bent scored the third goal after appearing as a substitute, he told reporters: "He won't be leaving."
The England international has been linked with a move to Liverpool after exit rumours intensified when he was photographed out shopping during his team's 2-0 defeat to the Reds.

* In terms of stupid statistics, the one that was frequently mentioned before the game yesterday - that Arsenal hadn't won a league match against QPR in over a decade - was particularly stupid. They haven't been in the prem for that long, that's why, not because they have some form of hex over us.

Kenny Dalglish warns against too great expectations of Steven Gerrard

• Midfielder is back after illness and injury • Andy Carroll set to play against former club Kenny Dalglish has warned against expecting too much, too soon from Steven Gerrard, who is back fit again and available to face Newcastle United for Liverpool at Anfield on Friday night.

There has been a lot of talk on the blog about the possibility of Andy Carroll returning to Newcastle. Andy Carroll while at Newcastle and scoring goals And I've also received a number of emails asking whether it would be possible to get Andy back on Tyneside, either on a loan deal or on a permanent deal.

Liverpool defender Daniel Agger insists his team-mates are focused on doing their best for the club and not Luis Suarez's situation.
The Uruguay international has been hit with an eight-game ban for a misconduct charge along with a £40,000 fine by the Football Association.
The Liverpool players showed their support for Suarez pre-match against Wigan by donning wearing T-shirts featuring his image on the front and number on the back.

By "The Other 87 Minutes" / Senior Unemployed English Major Correspondents


Our week of seasonal celebrations continues here at The Other 87 with a special Tuesday XI featuring a cast of characters straight out of a typical holiday gathering. Naturally, we've lined them up in a 4-3-2-1, the Christmas Tree formation.

It must be near to January: the transfer rumour mill is going into overdrive. Manchester United's midfield problems seem to be the current hot topic. Despite Michael Carrick showing a new-found propensity for lung-busting runs into the box and scoring goals, the papers seem to think that Sir Alex Ferguson will spend money in the [.

It must be near to January: the transfer rumour mill is going into overdrive. Manchester United's midfield problems seem to be the current hot topic. Despite Michael Carrick showing a new-found propensity for lung-busting runs into the box and scoring goals, the papers seem to think that Sir Alex Ferguson will spend money in the [.

I really am beginning to wonder about Fernando Torres now. The game on Saturday night was a blatant example of the fact to me anyway that there seems to be "issues" between AVB and our Spanish striker.
I stand by my match report and everything I said there. Why on earth we go 1-0 up, see that Drogba is not having his best game and keep him on the pitch, ask Torres to warm up and then not even use him is beyond me!

A pivotal trip to White Hart Lane is on the holiday horizon. Slow your roll, though. First, we need to navigate this potentially tricky venture to Greater Manchester on Saturday.

Hey, it's Franco

On paper, away to Wigan doesn't appear to be too much trouble.

Players are people. If you prick them, they bleed. Despite a professional existence that involves getting kicked, not all are invincible shoulder-goal-popping memes. They have feelings. If they sit on the bench for not scoring goals, then their confidence dips and they score less goals. It's a brutal cycle.