In 1975 Admiral took over the design of the iconic Manchester United shirt. They continued until 1980, where Adidas attained the honour. But, for 5 years that striped collar and cuff ensemble was synonymous with the sexy fleet-footed wingers and the free flowing football that stole my heart and ensured I supported the Red Devils [.

THFC1882 present a match report by Anthony Lombardi

Liverpool and Tottenham: Both Clubs Fail to Dare and To Do.

Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur drew 0-0 at Anfield, in a tight Premier League encounter that neither team wanted to lose, or seemed determined enough to try and win.

A first win of 2012, seven goals, a striker in the form of his life, and one of the most exciting young talents in the country. Finally a day really worth cheering about.

The emergence of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, in particular, is great news for the club. In recent times Arsene Wenger seemed to have lost his touch with bringing in exceptional young talents, with the likes of Diaby, Denilson and Walcott not fulfilling their potential, and the most exciting player, Wilshere, coming up through the club's academy.

By THOMAS FLOYD

With Thursday's acquisition of Albanian striker Hamdi Salihi as their second Designated Player, D.C. United is making one thing abundantly clear: After spending the past few seasons breaking down and rebuilding an aging roster, this team is once again ready to win now.

Fernando Torres has been the focus of press and media attention ever since he signed for Chelsea. He scored 81 goals in just 142 games for Liverpool and everyone expected more of the same here but it hasn't happened. Everyone is asking questions, people are beginning to turn and doubt Torres but I am posting this because I for one believe in Torres.

Well after signing Gary Cahill, it hasn't taken Chelsea long to get their business done before the game tonight as the Belgian side have announced that we have signed Belgian International Kevin De Bruyne on a five and a half year deal for a reported £7m. DeBruyne will remain with Genk on loan until the end of the season.

Despite what a quote attributed to Owen Coyle in Sporting Life says, Sebastien Le Toux is still a transfer target for Bolton Wanderers, if the money is available.

Alan Nixon, of The People and Mirror Football, is reporting that Bolton is focusing mostly upon wingers, but that Le Toux is still on the team's mind.

According to the Daily Mirror on Sunday, Manchester City have rejected an offer from ­Liverpool to swap Carlos Tevez for Andy Carroll.

According to the exclusive in the newspaper, Liverpool approached Man City's Football ­Administration Officer Brian Marwood with the offer 48 hours ago, just hours after beating the Blues in the Carling Cup semi-final.

In all the hoopla surrounding the Seattle Sounders offseason moves, there has been one player that seems to have flown under the radar more than any other: Servando Carrasco. During the midfielder's rookie season, he became better known for the person he was dating than anything he did on the field.

If you had asked any Stevenage supporter a couple of weeks ago who Gary Smith is, the majority would have replied 'Who?' It would have been a justified reaction because until his name began to be linked with the vacant managerial position, Gary Smith's reputation within this country was, well, non-existent.

Gabriel Gomez was signed by the Philadelphia Union in late December. Last night was the first chance Philly fans have had to examine the versatile Panamanian.

In a 1-0 friendly loss to the United States, Gomez played as a calming link between Panama's back four and skittish front five.

The good news: He was fantastic.

One thing I have noticed on my blog and amongst Chelsea fans in general is a difference of opinion about our formation and who should be starting games. Of course we all know that for now AVB prefers the 4-3-3 formation as per managers before him here, but I just wonder what you the Chelsea fan reading this believes to be our better option(s).

Benjamin Franklin once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. With this definition in mind events at the Emirates stadium on Sunday could lead some Arsenal supporters to question the mental health of their manager.

Sunday 28th August 2011 will be a date forever etched on the minds of Arsenal and Manchester United supporters alike, remembered with very differing degrees of fondness.

John Nyen sees parallels

The two managers sit across from each other, both hooked up to the machine. The humming and whirring increases as they are instructed by the lab technician in the white coat.

"Think of your ideal, of what you want your team to become.

Juventus have scored 29 goals in 18 league matches which is not very impressive but by no means is it a disastrous figure considering only two clubs in Serie A have scored more: Milan and Napoli.

The figures do not lie and a closer look reveals the Bianconeri have scored 10 goals in 3 matches meaning the club managed only 19 goals in the other 15 games.

It's out of the frying pan and into the fire for Arsenal as they take on Manchester United at Emirates Stadium on Sun. Jan 22. It's going to be interesting to see how the Gunners psyche will be affected considering United laid an 8-2 beating on them at Old Trafford back on Aug. 28. You can get your Arsenal tickets for this classic matchup starting at £220 and it could end up being the game of the season since the Gunners are sure to want revenge for the Old Trafford debacle.

By Richard Nash

Tottenham's victory over Everton last week left them level on points with Manchester United and three points off league leaders Man City, confirming their position as genuine title rivals to the Manchester clubs. Much has been made of the additions of Scott Parker and Emmanuel Adebayor as a reason for the club's success, but the biggest change since last season has been the use of their wingers, Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon.

Photo: Paul Rudderow

With the SuperDraft behind us, thoughts now turn to the nitty-gritty of the 2012 Union season. Naturally, questions arise. Over a two-part series we pose ten questions to our Union beat reporter, Eli Pearlman-Storch, beginning in part 1 with a focus on formation, roster depth and leadership roles within the starting XI.

Right then,

Swansea away today and a chance to keep pace/claw back some points on those above us in the table. The importance of the game can't be understated. The FA Cup game against Leeds provided us a fantastic moment and a talking point/feel-good factor that lasted all week, but at the same time seemed a bit surreal.

Arsenal visit the Liberty Stadium with a chance to pull away from Liverpool and get within a point of Chelsea in fourth. But Swansea's impressive home record suggests a win will be a commendable achievement. The Welsh side have only conceded 4 goals at home Joint lowest in the League on par with City and lost only once with United sneaking a 1-0 win back in mid-November.

With roster competition and depth chart talk occupying the pre-training camp conversation online, we thought it would be good to give a visual after the most recent additions to the team (Christian Sivebaek, Andrew Duran and Babayele Sodade) being highly unknown we're not going to guess at their flexibility.

Slow news weeks, obviously. Still, a couple of tidbits are noteworthy. Find out which legendary French striker is held in high regard by Gibbs and why our next transfer target could be a 16 year old. More after the jump.

When Thierry Henry re-joined the Gunners at the start of the month, there were questions regarding his potential worth to the team, but also his effect on the team chemistry that has progressed leaps and bounds since the start of the season- it's obvious that this is one of the most closely-knit and cohesive Arsenal team in years.

The 2012 SuperDraft has been criticized as being a weak draft, but the positions that the Brotherly Game feels the Philadelphia Union should target have plenty of options from which to choose. Left midfielder or left winger is one of the few positions that this SuperDraft has enough depth to wait until the second round to take a player, but it also has a few intriguing first round prospects.

Antonio Conte has been the driving force of the Juventus revolution with his aggressive 4-3-3 formation. Essential to the attack are the wingers as not only do they offer more of a threat in the attack, they offer support for the striker as well as take attention away from the middle. Conte inherited one of his wingers in the form of Simone Pepe, but the other wing was left vacant.

The result last night has really put the cat amongst the pigeons with Chelsea now sitting eight points behind Tottenham in the Premier League. The remit for Saturday's game now is simple, we have to win and get the three points and the performance doesn't matter. We have to get on a run of results and keep picking up three points week in, week out and anything else will be a disaster!

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.

Skillful wingers in the player pool are at a premium ahead of Thursday's MLS SuperDraft, but three of the top players available at the position are some of the more sought-after attackers eligible for selection.

Sam Garza, a Generation adidas signing out of UCSB who can play up top or on the wing, helped his stock considerably with his showing while playing for the adiPure team at the Combine and had a big hand in helping set up Ethan Finlay as part of the Creighton forward's hat trick.

The New York Red Bull's Thierry Henry came on as a second half substitute to a rapturous reception from the Arsenal fans, and then in pure Hollywood style, scored the winner against Leeds United tonight.

It took Henry less than 10 minutes to show the ineffective Marouane Chamakh how it is done as he took one touch to control Alex Song's clever pass in his favourite inside left position and, before the Leeds defenders could react, he had planted the ball beyond keeper Andy Lonergan and into the far corner.

Thierry Henry came on as a second half substitute to a rapturous reception from the Arsenal fans, and then in pure Hollywood style, scored the winner against Leeds United tonight.

It took Henry less than 10 minutes to show the ineffective Marouane Chamakh how it is done as he took one touch to control Alex Song's clever pass in his favourite inside left position and, before the Leeds defenders could react, he had planted the ball beyond keeper Andy Lonergan and into the far corner.

Let's calm down, it's only the FA Cup Third Rou-WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

A game dominated by Arsenal but missing a special finish was effectively ended when Thierry Henry made his return to Arsenal as a 69th minute substitute and scored a sublime winner 10 minutes later.

Liverpool is making progress on establishing grounds to negotiate a deal for Birmingham City winger Nathan Redmond, who is being valued at £10 million by the midlands club.
Redmond has 2 years remaining on his current deal at St. Andrew's, but has recently attracted interest from Manchester City and other Premier League clubs.

1. Wingers in Wales- As Wayne Routledge wheeled away in celebration after scoring Swansea's second goal, Brendan Rodgers probably popped an Aspirin. For newly promoted sides selection dilemmas are few and far between, making each individual one all...
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A former trialist, a former Uruguay World Cup national team player and a Generation Adidas #1 pick headline the strongest positional set of Seattle Sounder FC. Sigi uses these men to be the playmakers on the outside, each in their own way. Two are used to chase long balls, only one is a traditional crosser and all tuck into take shots.

By Chris Wright

In no particular order, Pies' ten-strong run down of the rumoured January deals we'd absolutely love to see come to fruition for one reason or another...

1. Didier Drogba (Chelsea) to Shanghai Shenhua...

Word is that there are several Chinese clubs queuing up to throw upwards of £400,000-a-week at The Drog in order to coerce him into semi-retirement.

Today's result says a lot to me about where this team is right now. There's not enough depth, and there's not enough finishing. Not only is the league race way out of reach, but we have to stop and wonder about the likelihood of overtaking Spurs, and also finishing 4th. Hopefully this one will motivate Wenger to do some real spending in January, although I'm still not holding my breath.

THE KING IS BACK... oh yeah, we also play some team this weekend.

Credit to @BeardedGenius for the picture.

By now you've heard the rumors. Read the Twitters, Sky Sports, and your old ma. Believed it straight away, or looked at the screen in disbelief, yelling obscenities, assured that Wenger took the easy way out, refusing to take a gamble on some multi-million euro German hunk.

The failures of the Revolution's 2011 season have been well-documented. A five-win season (fewest in franchise history). A nine-game winless streak (tied for a franchise high). A scant 28 points (tied with Vancouver for the league low). A season-ending seven-game victory drought.

And so on.

Aston Villa 1 – 2 Arsenal Match Report

1st half observations from a bad stream

The first 45 minutes were pretty different from what I expected. Aston Villa did not close us down frantically and allowed Arsenal plenty of space. Especially Gervinho and Theo saw plenty of the ball, as Villa sat deep in the beginning, allowing our wingers to attack them from the sides.

Featured image: Paul Rudderow

Editor's note: At the end of the 2010 season, we posted a series of season reviews of every Philadelphia Union player. Over the next several weeks PSP continues with a review of the 2011 season.

A striker can go missing for long stretches, only to pop up and score with a single touch.

Alan Pardew will again go with the two wingers that started the game against Swansea on Saturday - Gabriel Obertan and Jonas Gutierrez. Which one will get the start tonight? Both players were not at their best on Saturday, but that's one reason to give them another chance tonight, in a game against WBA that we are all hoping Newcastle can win.