Amidst all the swirl of Hiddink's possible moves, the Chelsea rumours seem to carry most credibility. They could soon have Guus Hiddink back as technical director. It would look a bit crowded at the top with Carlo Ancelotti as manager, Frank Arnesen as director of football, and Ron Gourlay elevated to CEO in place of Peter Kenyon.

Sunderland went ahead with a Darren Bent goal in the 71st minute and held on for the win. A somewhat lucky goal but the they are getting quite the reputation as the club that the big four fear the most. Liverpool and Man Utd have had their share of difficulties with them, so it was never going to be easy for Arsenal.

Bad news for Barca.They were held to a 1 - 1 draw by Athletic Bilbao.Messi received this kung fu kick in the face early on in the game. He was back on his feet in a while but not for long.He was substituted in the 75th minute with a suspected muscle tear in the thigh.

The match fixing scandal has tainted 32 matches in the Bundesliga lower divisions. The investigation into it have been widened the dragnet. Former and current players of VfL Osnabruck have come under suspicion.

Thomas Cichon, former captain of Bundesliga third division side VfL Osnabruck who now plays for Moroka Swallows in South Africa, is alleged to have accepted an undisclosed amount of money to lose to Augsburg's (17 April 2009) by three goals.

A bit of conjecture here. The injury news is looking a bit more positive but that might not be what could be worrying Arsene Wenger now.

He has to get William Gallas and Bacary Sagna to refocus on club football after the Ireland France odyssey. Gallas of course was one of the principal characters in the France farce and might be in for some stick with fans with Irish national players in their club like City and Aston Villa.

17 arrests for a match fixing scandal which affects 200 matches in nine European countries.

The matches include the Bundesliga second division, and the leagues in Belgium, Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia, Turkey, Hungary, Bosnia and Austria. 12 Europa matches and 3 CL matches are said to be manipulated this year, and it is unclear as to whether it is the group stage or qualifying rounds.

My introduction to Daniele De Rossi was the vicious elbow that he threw at Brian McBride, leaving his face bloody in the USA vs Italy match in the 2006 World Cup. It left a negative impression of him but here is De Rossi doing something rare in football nowadays, acknowledging that he used his hand to score a goal against Serie side Messina.

Arsene Wenger had some good news.

"After being assessed by the Arsenal medical staff, the club can confirm that Kieran Gibbs has sustained severe bruising to the bones and soft tissue of his right foot."

There is no fracture of the metatarsal as feared at first. Gibbs injury is short term and he should ready to face the highly anticipated Chelsea showdown.

Amidst all the drama with the Ireland vs France match and earlier the Egypt vs Algeria showdown, the USA played a friendly with Denmark. Bob Bradley started Jeff Cunningham and I am happy to say, it turned out well because he scored his first international goal and nearly set up Altidore with another.

Its not just the Egyptian and Algerian governments having a holy go at each other.

The replay request is now being echoed in the upper echelons of the Irish government as Brian Cowen, the Irish PM is now suggesting that he will approach the French premier Nickolas Sarkozy to discuss a replay and circumvent FIFA's objections.

Landon Donovan - Most Valuable Player of the MLS for the 2009 season..

Robin Van Persie flew today to Belgrade to meet with Marijana Kovacevic, a Serbian housewife who uses fluid from horse placenta to massage injured tissues enabling it to heal faster. At least that is what many footballers using her treatment claim.

RVP did not seem to know much about her or the therapy:

"She is vague about her methods but I know she massages you using fluid from a placenta," he said.

Gibbs limped off with an ankle injury after a 12st minute tackle forced him out of the U21 Euro match against Lithuania. He is to undergo an X ray as a precautionary measure and more information on the extent of his injury will be available later this week.

With Gael Clichy out for a month with a back injury, the left back position was a lock for Gibbs.

Some uplifting news for the Liverpudlians. Stevie G is ready to rock n' roll against City this weekend. Will Liverpool join the list of clubs that have stuck it to City?

Personally, I think Liverpool played well against Birmingham - they faltered familiarly on set pieces but overall they were a number of positives.

Earlier this summer, the football world was shocked by the tragic death of Espanyol captain Dani Jarque, dead of a heart attack at the age of 26 years.

And now, Antonio De Negris, a striker for Greek team Larissa, and a former Mexixcan international who was capped 16 times is dead at 31 years of age of a suspected heart attack.

Why is this man not in the All XI?

Its the numbers you produce and not the little things that you do on the pitch to improve your team which seems to drive the MLS All XI. Even when you factor in stats it does not seem to add up to why Cuauhtemoc Blanco was left out.

Blanco played 21 matches, started in 15 of them and in 1452 minutes of playing time he scored 5 goals and 8 assists.

After RVP's injury, the news that Eduardo is being sent to Liverpool makes as much sense as a Sarah Palin presser. A slow news day during international week.

Ramsey was incandescent in Wales 3-0 victory over a disjointed Scotland side. The third goal reminded me of the way Fabregas took off against Spurs for his goal. And now George Burley faces the axe.

A brief statement on Arsenal's website updates RVP's status. He will be traveling back to London this week and resuming his care with the Arsenal medical staff at London Colney.

They also confirm the 6 week convalescence period.

Elsewhere in the Arsenal blog world:

Arseblog mentions, the silver lining is the pretty straightforward series of fixtures till Xmas other than Chelsea and Liverpool (both clubs have their injury woes too).

The Guardian picked Liverpool to win the Premiership. We can see how well that is turning out.

Now, they are picking Chelsea to win the Treble. This comes from Paul Wilson who predicted that Chelsea would fall out of the top four.

RVP's convalescence time has been reduced to 4-6 weeks, less than the two months feared. He has a partial tear of the ankle ligament. A Dutch official said it was not a fracture but there was still significant ankle damage.

"It's impossible to put an exact time frame on it because some players heal more quickly than others.

RIP: Robert Enke: 24 August 1977- 10 November 2009

A sight never seen in Germany as tens of thousands turn AWD Arena into a church to pay their last respects to Robert Enke and to support his wife, Teresa a brave figure in black, who knew best her husband's terrible depression and in the end could do little.

Costa Rica's new coach Rene Simoes has had a mixed bag of results. The Ticos beat his old team, Trinidad and Tobago handily, 4-0. The USA were able to claw back a draw against them with Jonathan Bornstein's equalizer (which made him a hero in Honduras) at RFK stadium.

However, the Ticos suffered a setback at home against Uruguay in the playoffs to decide the World Cup spot between the 4th placed CONCACAF and 5th placed CONMEBOL teams.

Positives:

A) The USA with their below full strength team played patient ball control. They took their time to build up their attack. Having no Donovan and Davies meant that the US had to give up their fast counterattacking edge. But the tactical switch was achieved quite effectively showing that the US is capable of this approach.

As an Arsenal fan, this is disastrous news.

RVP is feared to have torn his ankle ligaments as he went down after a heavy challenge from Giorgio Chiellini in the Italy vs Netherlands friendly. He is undergoing an ankle scan in the Netherlands to ascertain the exact damage.

Wenger must be going out of his mind.

Three big saves by Rimando in the penalty shootout keeps the Fire out. Ned Grabavoy nails the winning penalty kick after Fabian Espindola misses his chance. The Fire fell victim to a peculiar directional bias that made them test Rimando low on his left as Thorrington, Pause, and Prideaux became predictable.

The Galaxy weathered two power outages, a disallowed goal by Andrew Hainault, and a dominant Dynamo display in the second half to score two extra time goals.

Landon Donovan becomes the MLS all time leader in goals scored as he converted the penalty after Alan Gordon was brought down by Ricardo Clark in the box.

From the US Soccer website's game notes:

There are a few instances in sporting history of father's coaching their son's at the highest level. A couple of famous ones include - Cesare and Paolo Maldini in soccer and Cal Ripken Sr. and Jr. in baseball.

"But how about having two teams with this phenomenon playing against each other - anyone heard of that happening?

A smart Alex.

Sir Alex Ferguson was given a four match touchline ban and a fine for 20,000 pounds following his attack on Alan Wiley's fitness. But the referees union is still baying for evermore blood. Here is Alan Leighton of Prospect, the referees union.

"From our point of view it is disappointing.

Nassim Ben Khalifa, the face of the U17 Swiss squad

In a few minutes the Swiss U-17 squad will take the field to face Colombia in the U17 World Cup semi-final. It is worth commenting that one has to look once or twice to find a name of Swiss extraction in the squad.

Nassim Ben Khalifa, their pre-eminent striker is a second generation Swiss with Tunisian roots.

The carpet bagger wants to leave but an angel waits in the wings.

Something about Brazilian music not being good enough for the neighbours.

Mark Hughes seems to be doing a good job of getting rid of all the Brazilians in the team. Elano, Jo, and now Robinho. We can also look forward to the African clique, Adebayor and Kolo Toure, being broken up.

Happier days: With Louis Van Gaal at Barca

From what one can gather, Robert Enke kept a terrible secret.

He hid his depression to himself, fearful if it became public, his adopted daughter would be taken away, he would lose his sport, and his family destroyed.

As his widow, Teresa says, "I tried to be there for him.

The solitary 81st goal that Rafael van der Vaart scored was all Real Madrid could come up against lowly Alcorcón.In contrast Barcelona continue to score prolifically bashing Cultural Leonesa 5 - 0 in the process.Goals from Bojan Krkic (two),Pedro, Messi and Xavi.

In Bob Bradley's search for Jozy Altidore's strike partner now that Charlie Davis is unfortunately out for six months or more recovering from that horrific car crash.

Johnson has always been an enigma. Great promise and an ability to get behind defenses with his speed. His was a blazing start with the MNT as he scored 7 goals in the 2006 World Cup qualifiers including a goal on debut against El Salvador and a hat trick three days later against Panama.

Keith Hackett stating the obvious.

"I have said to managers in the past that this is an area of great difficulty for referees and it can come down to the viewing angle of the referee."

I think it is time to give him the goods on the human eye. The game has gotten a lot quicker and the art of deception even more perfect.