Richard Lewington

Manchester United striker Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has retired at age 34 after battling knee injuries for four years. He had announced earlier that his intention was to intends to see out his current contract with United, which runs until June 2008. His knee woes begain against Charlton in September 2003 and, despite playing and scoring […]

Liverpool will be glad not to see Sunderland again for a while. They picked up a 2-0 win but at a hight cost. Centre-back Jamie Carragher suffered a broken rib and collapsed lung during Saturday's match at Sunderland. It is unknown how long Carragher will be out of action but its likely to be a […]

This is the first in a series of quick profiles of some of the clubs involved in this year's Champions League. We start with a look at defending Ligue Une champions Olympique Lyonnais. As in past seasons, Lyon have watched some of their top talents leave for "bigger" clubs (though higher wages and lower taxes […]

The first legs of the the third qualifying round were played on Tuesday and Wednesday and there were few surprises among the results. Among the notable events from Tuesday, Freddy Adu made his debut appearance for Benficabut it was old boy Rui Costa who stole the show and proved he is still capable of performing […]

Second round qualifiers wrapped up this week and the most eye-catching result was Rosenborg BK putting 7 goals past FC Astana. Rosenborg coast through to the third round on a 10-2 aggregate score. The seven goals came on the strength of a hat-trick from Abdoulrazack Traoré, a brace by Yssouf Kone and further strikes from […]

It's hard to imagine but the final is a mere 288 days away! 🙂 With that in mind, the draw for the third and final round of qualifying for the 2007/08 UEFA Champions League group stage was held on Friday and some interesting matches should emerge. Last season's runners-up, Liverpool FC, will have to overcome […]

My summer vacation cut into the time I had to discuss results from last week's opening legs. We reviewed the first day of matches but not the second. So here's a quick recap of what happened. One of the ties that I was most interested in saw a meeting of the 2006/07 Slovakian champions MSK […]

New signing Lee McCulloch scored to help Rangers FC to a 2-0 win against FK Zeta in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League second qualifying round tie at Ibrox last night. Second-half goals by David Weir and McCulloch salvaged what was an otherwise poor match by all reports. I've only caught extended highlight […]

Ever since it was first released, Franklin Foer's book "How Soccer Explains The World" has been widely talked about. With the leagues over for the summer, I was lucky enough to finally get around to cracking open a copy of the book to kick off my summer soccer reading. The book's stated goal is to […]

Ludovic Giuly has completed his move from Barcelona to AS Roma. Barca accepted an offer of between 3.2 and 4.4 million euros over the weekend and Giuly travelled to Italy on Monday to finalise the transfer. He passed a medical and agreed terms on a three-year deal. Giuly had been linked with a return to […]

Newly-crowned Bundesliga champions VfB Stuttgart are looking to strengthen their forward line ahead of the coming season. They've allowed Jon Dahl Tomasson to make his loan from Stuttgart to Villarreal a permanent deal after the two clubs reached an agreement on a fee. Stuttgart's Swiss striker, Marco Streller, looks set for a move to Nurnberg, […]

The long road to the UEFA Champions League final started today with the draw for matchups in the first two rounds of Champions League qualifying. One of the more interesting second round matchups could be FC København (FC Copenhagen) versus Israeli club Beitar Jerusalem FC. Scottish club Rangers FC also enter the competition in the […]

"We don't think Fabio Capello is the right person to lead Real Madrid into the future given what we want this club to achieve." With that statement Real Madrid sporting director Predrag Mijatovic had me wondering exactly what Real Madrid want to achieve. After winning one consecutive La Liga title, it appears the club is […]

Rangers FC have completed the signing of DeMarcus Beasley from PSV Eindhoven. The 25-year-old US international has signed a three-year deal at Ibrox in a move that The Scotsman reports is worth £700,000. This represents a reasonable bargain as Beasley joined PSV back in 2004 for a fee of £1.5m after spending four seasons with […]

In a blockbuster move Thierry Henry appears ready to end his eight-year stay with Arsenal as reports are flooding across the wires that he has agreed to sign for Barcelona in a £16m transfer deal with Henry agreeing to terms on a four-year, £130,000-a-week contract . No official announcement has appeared on either club's website […]