Good afternoon. Well, it hasn't quite sunk in yet but amazingly we managed to beat the league leaders last night and in brilliant fashion. Two fantastic goals a belter from Hernandez and a skilful volley from Kewell was enough to secure the win. It was an unlikely result but to be honest, we really deserved it.

Sunday was Genoa striker Rodrigo Palacio's 30th birthday, so to mark the occasion, he scored a tremendous backheel goal to begin his side's 3-2 win over Lazio that day. In the 10th minute, the Argentine floated a backheel volley off a corner kick while running away from the goal, landing the ball gently in the far corner of the net.

Liverpool were presented with a golden chance of going within 2 points of 4th place after Chelsea were held to another draw on the weekend against Manchester United.

But it was not to be as Liverpool were held to their eighth league draw at Anfield by a determined Spurs outfit.

Andy Carroll went close to opening the scoring early on after Steven Gerrard sent through an inch perfect pass to Carroll who was stopped by an inch perfect tackle by Michael Dawson.

Luis Suarez returned to a hero's welcome at Anfield after serving a lengthy match ban for racially abusing Patrice Evra. And four minutes after he entered the match as a substitute, Suarez proved he is not racist by kicking Spurs' old-timey white man Scott Parker square in the belly during the scoreless draw (moving pictures here).

1. At the start of the day I'd have taken a point at Stamford Bridge. We never win there, regardless of which team goes in to the game in better form, so a draw is a decent enough result. Don't forget that City lost there a few weeks ago, so despite some of their drag performances this season, Chelsea are still the 4th best team in the country.

Danny Rose may not have achieved an awful lot in his Spurs career since his left-footed wonder volley in the North London derby. But now he must be thanked for bringing the video above to our attention. Letting us into the sanctity of the Spurs dressing room, Rose filmed fellow midfielder Sandro performing some impressive [.

Trademark volley from the non-flying Dutchman Bergkamp still got it by soccermr Ajax's coaching team like to roll back the years from time to time. Take this video, for instance. Frank De Boer play a lovely Hollywood pass, Dennis Bergkamp gets on the end of it and works his magic by firing in a glorious [.

Trademark volley from the non-flying Dutchman Bergkamp still got it by soccermr Ajax's coaching team like to roll back the years from time to time. Take this video, for instance. Frank De Boer play a lovely Hollywood pass, Dennis Bergkamp gets on the end of it and works his magic by firing in a glorious [.

Some good and some bad news for Salomon Kalou today at the Africa Cup of Nations.

We'll start with the good, the real good. Kalou opened the scoring for Côte d'Ivoire in their 2-0 win against Burkina Faso tonight. Peep Sal's excellent volley in visual form below.

The volley was the cherry on the top of what was another fine performance from the rarely used Chelsea vet.

Barcelona [2 : 2] Real Madrid
No. of Yellow Cards : 9
No. Of Red Cards : 1

Somewhere beneath this 'Blaugrana Happiness Pile' lies Pedro, who scored the opening goal in Barca's 2-2 draw with Real Madrid at the Nou Camp last night.

Photo by ISIphotos.com

George John has yet to make his debut with West Ham United, but he soon could after putting together a strong showing in his first match since joining the club.

John, on loan from FC Dallas until the beginning of March, starred in his first game for West Ham's developmental squad on Tuesday, putting together a strong defensive outing while scoring a goal in the Hammers' 1-1 draw with Gillingham.

Owen Coyle felt Bolton Wanderers ran out deserved winners following their emphatic 3-1 success over Liverpool at the Reebok.
Bolton came into the game having lost 10 straight in league action to the Reds, a record that ended in style on Saturday.
Mark Davies fired the home side ahead early on with Nigel Reo-Coker doubling their advantage in the 29th minute.

Espanyol extended their unbeaten run to five league games and moved into fifth place in La Liga thanks to a comfortable 3-0 win over Granada. The hosts started brightly and took the lead when Raul Baena headed in from Thievy Bifouma's flick-on after 26 minutes.

Espanyol doubled their advantage just before half-time as Allan Nyom was harshly penalised for a trip on Vladimir Weiss and Joan Verdu slotted home the penalty.

By Chris Wright

Manchester City's U18s whupped their Swindon Town counterparts 4-1 in the FA Youth Cup last night, with the game playing host to a trio of excellent (for one reason or another) goals.

After going two-nil up early on, City's third goal started the ball rolling when a 25-pass tippy-tappy (it's the English version of tiki-taka, i.

I've written some poems about the Premiership action this weekend. Starting with Chelsea, ending with Swansea... Celebration: A thunderous volley rattles the bar falling to a favorible shin. A smug look of delight floats across number 8 as the ball ricochets in. 'Run Lamps, RUN', point to the sky cherish this moment of celebration.

By Alan Duffy

Chelsea 1-0 Sunderland Premier League 14th January 2012

Ghanaian midfielder Michael Essien returned to first team duty for Chelsea against Sunderland on Saturday, making a welcome substitute appearance after missing the first half of the season with a cruciate ligament injury.

As 20 year old Italian Marco Faraoni watched the ball drop onto his right boot before unleashing an unstoppable dipping volley beyond the reaches of Antonio Mirante, it capped what was a dominating performance for the Nerazzurri, and arguably their most complete performance since the heady days of a certain [read more]

For the third time in two months, Liverpool and Manchester City square off, this time in the first leg of their League Cup semi-final. Liverpool's trip to the Eastlands last week ended with the visitors on the wrong end of a 0-3 result that saw City concede most of the possession but take the chances they managed to create.

By Chris Wright

It wasn't a particularly strong field for one reason or another but, after whittling their 10-strong shortlist down to a final three, FIFA saw fit to hand their Puskas Award for the best goal scored during 2011 to Santos wunderkind Neymar for his fine fleet-footed 'slalom' effort against Flamengo back in July.

By FRANCO PANIZO

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The second day of the MLS Combine was the first day for Ethan Finlay, who had arrived to the Sunshine State on Saturday. He had missed the first day of the event on Friday to attend the Hermann Trophy Award ceremony in St.

Mendy it like Beckham (or at least Henry) If Macclesfield player Arnaud Mendy had dreamt of scoring against Bolton the night before their FA Cup third round tie on Saturday, he would have struggled to do a better job than he did in the match itself. Thierry Henry's FA Cup comeback could be tonight, but [.

The first pure fitness session on the field since camp began five days ago was a doozy. Designed by fitness coach Masa Sakihana, the intense 36-minute program was built to increase their maximum fitness capacity and improve the players' ability to change direction at speed.

There were two different stations, each running a duration of one minute.

Manchester United's luck seems to switch around in the Derby as they get their revenge over Manchester City with a 3-2 victory in the third round of FA Cup with Wayne Rooney bagging two goals.

The Red Devils victory was however filled with a little bit of controversy as Man City were forced to play for pretty much the whole match with 10 men after Vincent Kompany received a pretty harsh straight red card.

Paul Scholes is back to Utd

Man Utd is making Rob Smyth eat his words. Wayne Rooney has scored two including a penalty and Danny Welbeck's wondrous volley rounds of the tally.

Vincent Kompany was sent off in the 12th minute for a two footed tackle on Nani which got the ball but not the man however Chris Foy, who else (memories of the Spurs vs Stoke match linger on) thought differently.

Another brilliant goal in the match between Man City and Man United, a superb volley by United striker Danny Wellbeck to make the game 2-0. City have been reduced to 10 men since about 15 minutes into the game, with a very contentious decision. Danny Wellbeck's brilliant volley was scored in around the 30th minute.

When doing research on U.S. midfielder Jeff Larentowicz, we kept coming across the nickname 'Ginger Ninja" written in stories here in the United States. It even followed him abroad when he went to train with Bolton.
So where did the comic-book, action-hero type nickname come from?
"Back in 2007, I scored a goal against the Chicago Fire," Larentowicz recounted.

Blackburn burnished a memorable win at Old Trafford last week and today it was Newcastle's turn to twist the knife into Sir Alex's men at St James Park. David De Gea was gone replaced by Anders Lindegaard and Wayne Rooney was back £200,000 lighter after his Boxing Day breakout. It did not make a difference as Newcastle pounded them with power, finesse, and a desire to play attacking football.

I have said it's no surprise that we drew 1-1 in this one really based on our performances of late. We pick ourselves up for the big games like Newcastle, City and Spurs in the league but for some reason our performances suffer against the likes of Wigan and now Fulham!. In saying that I mean no disrespect to both those sides and to Fulham especially as I don't think Fulham fans thought they would come away with anything after being stuffed 5-0 at home to United.

Danish defender Daniel Agger insists Liverpool must maintain belief if they are to solve their recent woes in front of goal.
The Reds were again left frustrated by a failure to take their chances in the 1-1 home draw against Blackburn Rovers on Boxing Day.
Rovers keeper Mark Bunn produced a number of top saves to deny the home team - particularly from Andy Carroll's late volley.

A genuinely poor performance it was not. It was, however, a rather terrible result.

A myriad of culpable parties

Chelsea again surrender a lead despite being in a position to record a comfortable win. First Wigan, and now Fulham. What the hell. More bemusing, the fact that this latest setback arrived just days after we put in an excellent shift at White Hart Lane in a game we easily could have won.

Even the return of captain Steven Gerrard after a two-month absence failed to lift Liverpool out of their current Anfield malaise as the Barlcays Premier League's bottom club Blackburn left with a point they barely deserved.
The England international, sidelined since October with an ankle problem, played the final 21 minutes but could not inspire a change in fortunes.

What a game of football it was last night. Tottenham dominated the first part of the game, Chelsea then got back into it, Spurs had to make a change to their formation and Chelsea dominated and should have won the game but then Spurs could have nicked it right at the end. It had everything!.
Both teams would be happy to take a point away from this one and both would feel as though they should have won it!

By Alan Duffy

Blackburn Rovers 1-2 West Bromwich Albion Premier League 17th December 2011

The Venky's support for Steve Kean has shown little sign of weakening this season, at least from the outside. However, behind the doors of the boardroom at Ewood Park, the Indian chicken overlords must surely be concerned after yet another league defeat for Blackburn.

Ipswich Town boss Paul Jewell must have feared the worse when he walked into the dressing room at half-time during their game against Barnsley at Oakwell last Saturday.
His side was 2-0 down and staring down the barrel of an eight consecutive league defeat. Incredibly, they hit five goals during the second half as they staged the most unlikely of comebacks.

Cesc goal helps Barcelona past Real Madrid 1-3 (Photo: REUTERS/Sergio Perez)

Barcelona recovered from conceding the quickest goal in El Clasico history to defeat Real Madrid 3-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu, delivering a decisive blow in the race for the La Liga title.

The victory snaps Madrid's 15 game winning streak and sees Barcelona leapfrog their bitter rivals to reclaim first place in the provisional Primera Division standings.

What a result that was just when we needed it. I had said a week or so ago that the next three games could make or break our season just as everyone was writing Chelsea off, stating we were in a slump and a shadow of the side we used to be.
Three wins out of three against Newcastle, Valencia and last night against Manchester City has firmly put our season back on track!

Paying lip service to RVP Arsenal keeper and all-round character Wojciech Szczesny celebrated the Gunners' 1-0 win over Everton an Saturday by getting intimate with Robin Van Persie's foot. The Pole puckered up and planted a kiss on the left boot of his team-mate, whose stunning left-footed volley had won the match for Arsene Wenger's [.

By: Brandon Arendt
At 6-0 the Wave have reason to celebrate.
The Milwaukee Wave showed the Rochester Lancers exactly what it means to take on the defending MISL champions. The Wave trounced the Lancers 24-9 after a hotly contested 1st quarter that saw a monstrous eight goals.

Match report

Firstly *boilk*

Secondly how fitting that on the 125th anniversary of the club we pulled out a 1-0 to the Arsenal, a result so synonymous with the club.

Thirdly the game itself was nothing much to talk about. Everton came and not only parked the bus but turned the bus sideways, then got another bus, attached that bus to the existing bus and then added another bus before placing all the buses in a row well outside the white lines of the parking space.

Arsenal ensured their 125th birthday celebrations were marked with a victory when defeating Everton 1-0 at Emirates Stadium in the Premier League thanks to a goal of outstanding beauty from Robin van Persie.

Just a day after the club unveiled statues of Herbert Chapman, Tony Adams and Thierry Henry outside their ground, Van Persie demonstrated why he may one day attain legendary status of his own in Islington with his 15th and best league goal of a wonderful season.