In a recent article, I discussed the incident involving Manchester United and Roma fans that resulted in four United fans being jailed for assault and resisting arrest, and whether or not football violence was getting out of hand.

In October 2007, the Home Office released a report detailing the number of arrests that occurred in English FA matches during the 2006/07 season.

It’s an extremely in-depth report, breaking down arrests by event (League, Cup, European/International, etc.), club, and most notably, by offense.

So, what do the numbers say?

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Talk about royally screwing over your employer’s employers.

Emil Dantchev, Dimitar Berbatov’s agent, has told the Sun that he has talked to Daniel Levy about Berbatov’s future at Tottenham and that if a big club comes knocking for Berba in January (or next summer), he should be allowed to leave Tottenham for his sporting ambitions.

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Real Madrid and FC Barcelona would be hammer and nail at each other as always for La Liga title, Atletico Madrid should possibly be there barging onto the duopoly, Villarreal, Real Zaragoza and Sevilla FC would be trying to smother each other for the remaining UEFA Champions League place.

That was the popular conviction at the start of the season and although a sly glance at the league table confirms that such predictions haven’t been wholly wrong, there’s one piece of the jigsaw that refuses to fit. And that piece is a certain Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona, the other Catalan club long submerged in the shadows of their more illustrious, more popular, more acclaimed FC Barcelona.

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It’s the end of the year. A popular time for various press publications to make “Best Of 2007″-type rankings.

The Times (UK) did the Best 100 movies of 2007, the New York Times the 10 Best Books of 2007, mCalcio.com the Reuters (RNPS) Best Sports Pictures of 2007 (oh what a shameful plug from my part), and Time Magazine the Top 50 Websites of 2007 (no I don’t think Soccerlens is in it, and neither is mCalcio for that matter ).

Meanwhile newspapers like The Sun, or magazines like FourFourTwo, have been making Top 10 rankings all year long really (see Top 10 EPL Entertainers, Top 100 Footballers, or Richest Players/Club Owners of the EPL, among others).

So, it’s time for French sports newspaper L’Equipe to join the others, and name its All-Star XI Football Players for 2007. Premiership fans will be pleased, because the team is dominated by English-based lads.

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Not having read the SI interview in full (mind you, 99.99% people haven’t, they’re just commenting on the excerpts from it), I think it’s easy to see how the media can turn one person’s honest analysis of the situation (Hick’s) into a fresh attempt to create a problem between the Liverpool owners and the Liverpool manager (Sky Sports, shame on you and your ancestors).

So let’s see what everyone read - Mr Hicks, take it away:

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If you don’t care for Italian football, scroll far, far down, because there’s a lot of Serie A-based news forthcoming.

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Motherwell captain Phil O’Donnell has died after collapsing towards the end of his side’s Scottish Premier League game against Dundee United.

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Few years, like 2007, can claim to have served as the launching platform for many of the talented youngsters football has to offer.

From Cristiano Ronaldo to Cesc Fàbregas, passing by Giovani Dos Santos and Bojan Krkic, through to Karim Benzema and Alexandre Pato, not forgetting of course Lionel Messi: while some have used 2007 to confirm expectations and firmly establish themselves as the stars of today (and many many tomorrows), others have just recently exploded onto the football scene, with good promise that 2008 will be even more exciting to follow as the previous year.

Well-known and popular tabloid newspaper The Sun takes a look at the ‘Ones to watch in 2008′, a Top 20 of the Best Youngsters on the football scene. Who knows… in a short time, most of these players might very well deserve their own individual article (some of them already do). Let’s have a look…

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Here are some notable quotes made during the past year. Each was stated by the named individual; however, my responses were created, and are not meant to represent the views of the individuals. Nor libel them in any way. This is both a factual and (hopefully) a light-hearted article.

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Towards the end of 2006, certain pundits and magazines were proclaiming the birth of Sir Alex Ferguson’s third (for some, fourth) great team stemming from his 20-year tenure at Manchester United.

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Suddenly the Bernabeu is enveloped in a white wave. No, not the apprehensive white of a panolada that must still be haunting Fabio Capello even when he is now in charge of a red-loving England national team, not the white of a flag raised up in surrender, but as both AS and Marca put it, the white of a “white Christmas”. Optimism is booming in Madrid.

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Camp Nou cathedral is no Jerusalem and Lionel Messi is no Jesus Christ. But that doesn’t make the diminutive Argentine anything less than a Saviour. If FC Barcelona is més que un club (more than a club), then Messi is more than another soldier in the Catalan army. He is the leader, the spiritual inspiration, the Messiah. Without him, the Catalan flock is lost.

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Let’s take a detailed look at how the African Cup of Nations will affect English Premier League clubs when it takes place from January 20th to February 10th in Ghana.

Many of the Premier League’s clubs will have at least one player represented at the competition, and some will have several, a few of whom could be there for the duration of the tournament.

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The wife and I are similar in many ways, but we disagree on the most prudent way to discipline children. Betty is from the old-school, and believes a small slap is perfectly acceptable. I take the opposite view, and prefer the use of a knuckle-duster.

Such actions would not be necessary if it wasn’t for our children being led astray by poor role-models, such as Premier League footballers. Even fully grown men occasionally follow their contentious lead; just last Tuesday I enjoyed a lunchtime roast.

It’s not just the off-field antics that leave a nasty taste in the mouth; the game is still riddled with simulation. There appears to be a growing number of players who embrace the turf more than Jodie Foster.

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This is not a shameless plug for one of the sponsors. I started playing this game well before I started writing for Soccerlens.com. Online Football Manager (OFM) is one of the greatest interactive online football games on the web today. It’s simple, easy to learn, and best of all its free!

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Carling Cup holders Chelsea will be looking to advance to a second consecutive final and third in four years when they take on Everton in the Carling Cup semifinals next month.

Chelsea took home the cup in 2005 and 2007 under Jose Mourinho, and they’re looking to get Avram Grant his first trophy as the Blues’ touchline technician.

On the other side, the trophy case is a little lonely. Everton are looking to advance to their first League Cup final since 1984 (1-0 defeat to Liverpool in a replay) and their first final of any kind since the 1995 FA Cup final, in which they defeated Manchester United 1-0.

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For six and a half years he has lived the almost impossible dream of being one of European football’s top strikers. For six and a half years he has hissed terror into the heart of every defender. For six and a half years he has walked the tightrope of celebrity life. But not anymore. He has now tumbled spectacularly from the tightrope and fallen with a massive thud on the bottomless abyss. The saddest fragment of the whole ghastly saga is that there’s no one to sympathise with him.

For Adriano Leite Ribeiro life that was once a symphony is now a broken song whose lyrics lack coherence and are littered with wailings. Just one and a half seasons back, the 25-year old Brazilian football star was one of the most feared strikers in the Italian Serie A, one was practically indispensable for his club Internazionale FC. But now he is a degenerating liability who can be disposed of and actually has been disposed of.

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They say the dictionary never lies but it does. Check out the string of words lined up against the term disaster and you will come across this: an event or fact leading to ruin or failure. Pooh! That isn’t half as much as disaster.

Then what is disaster?

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A very Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everybody out there. But it certainly isn’t a bright and sparkling Christmas for a select few in the footballing world. Let’s go through those unfortunate players, bosses and teams:-

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For those who, during these times of holiday cheer, are hoping for the quick return of their favorite Portuguese manager (hidden perhaps, in the gift bag of Santa Claus… not much of a stretch from laundry baskets), rejoice! The ‘Special One’ is back!

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If you think you’ve seen it before, indeed you have. For the second year in a row, Tottenham and Arsenal face off in the Carling Cup semifinals, with the winner going up against Chelsea or Everton in February’s final at Wembley. The first leg will be contested at the Emirates Stadium on January 8th, with the second leg being played at White Hart Lane on January 22.

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Képler Laveran Lima Ferreira, known to most as just Pepe, was born in Maceló, Brazil, on the 26th of February 1983. As a defender, he distinguishes himself from his counterparts by his embodiment of both speed and physical prowess – the former attribute he perfected by regularly running the beaches of Brazil as a youngster, whilst his Hulk-like figure he accredits to a forward-thinking and authoritarian father, who forced the young Pepe to perform jumping exercises in the sea with a weight strapped to his leg.

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Here are ten reasons why Barcelona can no longer call the shots, or at least title-winning shots:

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While Jose Mourinho’s antics might inspire you to believe that the Portuguese wild cat brilliantly takes attention off his team and onto himself, his successor at Stamford Bridge goes one better to actually take the attention off Chelsea FC itself.

Yes, how smartly Avram Grant has pressed the OFF switch to ensure that the media hovers more around Arsene Wenger’s explosively-talented Arsenal, Manchester United’s ruthlessly efficient squad and Liverpool’s hierarchical problems.

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There will be a white Christmas in Spain as Julio Baptista’s goal gave Real Madrid a 0-1 victory over arch-rivals Barcelona at Camp Nou to give Madrid a seven point lead at the top of La Liga going into the winter break. Madrid dominated the game from start to finish and Barça were perhaps a bit lucky not to be on the end of a bigger defeat.

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El Clásico was no classic. No roasted pig’s head was showered on the players, no bottles rocketed onto the pitch, no flares were lighted up in the stands and not even the teensy bits of paper were hovering anywhere above the Camp Nou turf.

There were only 3 yellow cards brandished and no red cards dished out to the players by the man in black, no punch-ups occurred between the two opposing sets of players, not many (in other words, hardly any) instances of sorcery in the match and even the respective club presidents suitably attired for the colossal occasion were dignifiedly mute.

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21st November 2007: the half-time whistle in the 2010 World Cup qualifying game between Brazil and Uruguay is met with a cacophony of boos from the Maracanã crowd, disenchanted with the performance of their side, despite Luis Fabiano’s equaliser just before the break. Although Brazil went on the win the game 2-1 with a second from Fabiano, the growing disillusionment with the national side was plain to see and it has prompted many to analyse just where they are going wrong.

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Note: This article was originally published on the mCalcio blog.

“Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Inter all the way“… As the AC Milan boat sinks yet again, the Inter frigate sails towards another Scudetto title. Personally (and I’ll bet the millions of other Serie A fans out there are with me on this) I’m still wondering what it’s going to take to stop this Nerazzurri team: Roberto Mancini’s men haven’t lost a game since November, and are still undefeated in the Serie A. Today, they went one goal down (a trademark free-kick execution by who other than Andrea Pirlo), but came back in style through their Argentine connection: Julio Cruz and Esteban Cambiasso. And they say that if there’s a team that “never gives up” it’s Juventus, but Internazionale are building quite the reputation lately…

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It’s time to take a trip around Europe once again to see how some of the other leagues in the continent are shaking out as we head towards the new year (you did know that there was football beyond the English Premier League, right?).

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Things are quickly turning from bad to worse to full-on intolerable with Barcelona and Ronaldinho, the rumors of him leaving the club for AC Milan are picking up speed. Ronaldinho hasn’t been in World Player of the Year form this season, and he’s falling further and further out of Frank Rijkaard’s good graces, with a recent reported blow-up from manager to player on the latter’s lack of effort potentially being the breaking point.

You’d like to think that, instead of letting him continue to sulk on the sidelines and allow the situation get to the point of no return before too long, Barca would do the smart thing for both sides involved, and take the big money to let someone else have to worry about him.

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