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.

A trip to Wembley and Liverpool's first cup final in nearly five years are on the line on Wednesday, with Manchester City heading to Anfield for the second leg of the League Cup semi-final. Liverpool have a 1-0 advantage from the first leg after a Steven Gerrard penalty capped a dominant opening spell for Kenny Dalglish's squad, but there's little illusion that they'll be able to coast into the final, with City more than capable of turning the tie over.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

With every passing year, the format for the MLS All-Star Game seems to continue to be a point of contention among fans and media, but even with that, the 2012 version won't be providing any drastic changes.

While officially awarding this year's game to Philadelphia, the league announced that it will maintain its unique MLS vs.

A trip to Wembley and Liverpool's first cup final in nearly five years are on the line tomorrow, with Manchester City heading to Anfield for the second leg of the League Cup semi-final. Liverpool have a 1-0 advantage from the first leg after a Steven Gerrard penalty capped a dominant opening spell for Kenny Dalglish's squad, but there's little illusion that they'll be able to coast into the final, with City more than capable of turning the tie over.

There's likely little to emerge in terms of highlights from yesterday's match on the Liverpool end of things, the only action worth recounting in any way is the play of Craig Bellamy, who was involved in nearly everything positive that Liverpool did, with Daniel Agger the only other squad member worth mentioning for a few forward runs and a thirty-yard bullet that clipped the top of the bar.

Something has always flummoxed me in sports. It's the propensity of lesser informed fans and a few media blowhards to stand on high, reeking of tough-minded and righteous superiority, and label some professional athletes as "soft."

This is especially bothersome in American football.

A.J. DeLaGarza enters his second consecutive January camp with seasoning and success under his belt, and with a new coach at the helm comes a new opportunity to represent the United States. The diminutive centerback will be looking to take advantage of his three weeks training as he seeks his first cap with the full National Team.

The brain trust for Seattle Sounders FC's on field product went to Bradenton, Florida for the MLS Combine. Yesterday, the club provided a conference call with Coach Sigi Schmid and Technical Director Chris Henderson. Like many outside observers they see a deeper draft class than usual, but with top level talent stable in quantity and quality.

Photo: Nicolae Stoian

Philadelphia Union

Reaction to the release of the 2012 schedule:

The Goalkeeper notes that the Union is hosting New York and DC twice. "This strikes me as unfair from a competitive balance standpoint...As such, it would seem to me to make more sense to have each team host one team once and one team twice.

[E]very time I hear the phrase 'The Premier League era', I see in my mind's eye my fellow blogger Lanterne Rouge wince. As he never fails to point out, English football did not start in 1992. He is, of course, entirely correct; the majority of this country's greatest successes, both at club and particularly at international level came well before the start of the Premier League.

One of the more interesting rumors of the holiday season in Europe surrounds Thierry Henry's potential return to Arsenal on a short-term loan in January. Nobody at Arsenal is publicly admitting it is in the works (Arsene Wenger said he has yet decide whether to pursue it), and there is no guarantee that the New York Red Bulls would be willing to let their star player go on a loan, but the idea remains an intriguing one.

By Charlie Corr
Eclipse Select staff
CHICAGO -- Former Eclipse Select Soccer Club player and coach Leslie Osborne was one of many Women's Professional Soccer players waiting to hear about the league's future this week. And for the past several months, Osborne's WPS franchise, the Boston Breakers, has been trying to secure additional ownership after majority owner Gary Loveman put his share of the organization on the market.

United's injury situation has gotten worse with the news that Darren Fletcher is to take "an extended break from football" owing to a chronic inflammatory bowel condition, Manchester United announced on Tuesday.

A statement from the club said:

"Over the past year he has had several absence periods which we have attributed to a viral illness in order to respect his right to medical confidentiality.

OK, so I'll admit I'm not in my most cheerful of moods. I've been absent for the better part of this week, trying to see some justice done here in Hood County, Texas. But alas, what I got instead was a heavy dose of injustice in the courtroom, if I may say so myself. I won't bore you all with the painful details, but what I really needed was 12 jurors from this soccer game in Portugal a few years ago:
Hopefully I can relax and blog a bit, and find my happy place again.

El Clasico showdown, Old Firm derby and lots of Man City action in December - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

There's only one more month left in 2011, and it looks like the year will go out with a real bang from a football standpoint.

December features several must-see matches, with a few that will have title implications on top of deciding bragging rights between fierce rivals.

After Roberto Mancini made it clear that Argentine striker Carlos Tevez would never play for City as long as he was still the coach, the 27 year old has surprisingly emerged as a key transfer target for Italian giants AC Milan.

Tevez however, will not be sold cheap and if the unconfirmed rumours doing the rounds are to be believed, then Milan will have to part with £25 million to bring the striker to the San Siro.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber confirmed on Thursday that the league would, in fact, go to an unbalanced, 34-game schedule in 2012.
SB Nation Soccer had first reported this likelihood back in September when teams first started to release season-ticket packages and multiple league officials anonymously confirmed that an unbalanced schedule was the plan.

Jonathan Tannenwald, who I like, laid out a few reasons why an unbalanced schedule is a bad idea:

1. A balanced schedule exposes every bad market in MLS to every good market in MLS.
2. Every fan in MLS should have the opportunity to travel to every venue in the league every year if he or she wants to.

Seattle Sounders general manager Adrian Hanauer is delighted with the rate of growth within Major League Soccer.
The North American domestic league has been going from strength to strength both on and off the pitch in recent years and Hanauer is ‘thrilled' with how things are fairing in MLS.

Seattle Sounders general manager Adrian Hanauer is delighted with the rate of growth within Major League Soccer.
The North American domestic league has been going from strength to strength both on and off the pitch in recent years and Hanauer is ‘thrilled' with how things are fairing in MLS.

We will a have a 34-game schedule and it will be unbalanced. It's simple math: 389 games would almost be impossible for us to execute with the other competitions we're required to play, the weather issues we have ... the challenges in a handful of markets, the FIFA dates,All the thing we have to do differently in the United States from a competitive standpoint, just the travel impact that exists in our country.

Lest I leave the impression that the only people writing about WPS are those who are no longer with the league, Jenna Pel did an excellent interview a couple weeks ago with the new WPS CEO Jennifer O'Sullivan and Philadelphia Independence owner David Halstead. Some passages, though, are already past their sell-by date:

Halstead: I'll say it from an owner's standpoint and a non-lawyer's standpoint, we believe that we're excited to move forward with six teams and Dan [Borislow, former owner of the new defunct Boca Raton Magicjack] has that passion and common purpose that I talked about a couple of minutes ago.

One of the things I really like about reffing roller derby is that we have a crew, and we work together all season. And when the players practice, we practice (if not reffing scrimmages, then working on skills, rules knowledge, situations, etc.). Last year when I became the assistant head referee (and I don't want to be the head - been there done that - this lets me pick and choose what I want to do), I decided I wanted to take an active role in new referee training.

Photo: Nicolae Stoian

When asked on MLSsoccer.com's Extratime podcast what he thought when Peter Nowak introduced the five man backline to the team, Danny Califf said, "To be honest, you know, I was a bit surprised. Most of the time, come playoff time, it's not the time to be experimenting and trying out new things and new personnel and things like that.

It's Monday, which means you probably don't need an excuse to get your drink on. But just in case you do, that's a current picture of Steven Gerrard there on the right. We're pretty sure it's not a Halloween costume. But more on that in a little bit...

* Against West Bromwich Albion, having Henderson tucked into the middle worked at both ends of the pitch.

Photo: Nicolae Stoian

There is no other way to look at it: it is halftime, and the Union are down one goal.

The Tweets

Carlos Valdes: "We have one more game. This is not over yet...DOOP"

Sebastien Le Toux: "Thanks for the great support tonight! You are the best! We still have 90 minutes to beat them.

In light of all the recent speculation surrounding the futures of Didier Drogba, Salomon Kalou and Jose Bosingwa, AVB has come out and made HIS intentions clear, even if they do not sign new contracts before January, he has no intention of selling them this season and would rather let their contracts run out than lose them from his plans for the season.

This is highly interesting. Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck, according to an insightful piece in today's Independent, purchased 100 Chelsea Pitch Owners shares at £100 each in April 2011. This entitles him to the maximum 100 votes in the upcoming apparent make-or-break meeting on 27 October.

Photo by Howard C. Smith/ISIphotos.com

With the latest batch of international friendlies in the rear view mirror, the U.S. national team is looking forward to its next set of games, which will both take place in Europe.

The United States' next two friendlies will be played during the Nov.

Photo by Andrew Katsampes/ISIphotos.com

After following up his breakout 2010 campaign with a surprisingly slow start from a goals standpoint, Sebastien Le Toux is finding his attacking form at the perfect time for the Philadelphia Union.

Le Toux scored seven goals in six matches in September, including two-goal efforts against New England and D.

Short-lived joy

It's only October and yet, this is already our 4th defeat in the Premier League. Depending on where your standpoint is, one could judge this latest one. For me, it was far worse than the hiding we got at Old Trafford. Not least because it's the North London Derby but also because unlike the United game, we had the players on the pitch that could've matched them.

Colorado nearly got its first Pac-12 Conference victory and nearly gave Arizona its first win of the season in an entertaining match at Prentup Field before 1,284 fans that ended in a 2-2 tie after two overtime periods.

Anne Stuller led the way for the Buffs with two goals as Colorado (3-5-2, 0-1-1 Pac-12) narrowly avoided giving the Wildcats (0-8-2, 0-2-1 Pac-12) their first victory of the season.

Martin Skrtel recently completed a 3 game tour of duty in the right back position for Liverpool, which came to an abrupt end with a red card against Spurs. Kenny Dalglish has stated that playing out of position is 'not a problem' for Skrtel, and whilst that's undoubtedly true from a team standpoint, the Slovakian's personal view on the issue is quite different.

After releasing its initial list of player salaries in May, the MLS Players' Union recently released an updated edition, which includes all of the new signings from an active summer transfer period.

More recent Designated Player signings Robbie Keane, Frank Rost, Mustapha Jarju, Jeferson, Milton Caraglio, Danny Koevermans and Torsten Frings are included in the bunch.

Kelyn Rowe is True Quality and not the typical hype

Westwood, CA Made the 45 minute journey on a free Sunday afternoon to catch the Bruins-Lions. From a soccer standpoint it was a disappointing 90 minutes. However, I got to see the only player on the 3four3 watch list that I had never seen.

Normally about now, we'd put together a fancy lineup card for you, but not this week. Guessing Sigi Schmid's lineup against CS Herediano of Costa Rica is difficult. The lineup for Herediano nearly impossible. When the Seattle Sounders beat CF Monterrey it was the least conventional set of XI we have seen him use.

As a Liverpool fan, you could be forgiven for not being surprised that I'm glad to see Arsenal lose their 'star' players. But honestly, it's not what you think. My concern is more for the behaviour of footballers... and the lack of respect with which Arsenal Football Club has been treated by many of it's players.

Their Words I mean we are all questioning each other and trying to find answers right now. How we can give up a 4-1 lead is just frustrating, we're not mentally tough and we're not doing the things necessary to hang on to a lead. From my standpoint we're just a young team and we're not mature enough to hang on to a lead.

Royston Drenthe has expressed his excitement at joining Everton on loan by launching an astonishing attack on Real Madrid, where is contract will expire at the end of this season.

Although the Dutchman insists he learned a lot during his time in La Liga, he firmly believes that the club has declined in recent years.

Royston Drenthe has expressed his excitement at joining Everton on loan by launching an astonishing attack on Real Madrid, where is contract will expire at the end of this season.

Although the Dutchman insists he learned a lot during his time in La Liga, he firmly believes that the club has declined in recent years.