The American Treble

Well the EPL season has kicked off and we have the first update in the fantasy league for August.  All of the matches for August have been completed and the league is on a bit of a break at the moment.  Some little thing called an international break. The top performers so far in the league are Manchester City keeper Joe Hart, Chelsea's Ashley Cole, Florent Malouda, and Didier Drogba.  If you had any of those players your team is probably looking pretty good right about now.



In case you haven't yet, here is a reminder that you can still sign up for the American Treble EPL Fantasy League.  Just follow the instructions here.  Tell your friends and get them to sign up too!

As for the results so far CplDaniel is off to a bright start at the top of the table.  Last season's winner Kirt is the highest American Treble member sitting in a respectable 7th place.  Check out the top 20 spots below!

#	Team	Manager	GW	TOT
1	Austin KillBotz!!	CplDaniel .	67	235
2	Hand of Frog Utd	Alan Mc Govern	66	226
3	Nava United	Matteo Nava	65	223
4	11 Gunners	R(aza) J(avaid)	68	219
5	The A-Team	The Special One	65	213
6	Rafa's Dirk is Kuyt	Tavo Escalante	61	209
7	Highbury's Finest	Kirt Kreutzer	53	202
8	Duds	Raghu Konathala	51	202
9	MiguelsOldBoys	Mike Sanchez	66	202
10	Hamburlger FC	Mike Rodriguez	57	200
11	DicedCarrots	David Jenkins	54	200
12	Slumdog Gooner Vol.2	Svapnil Patel	53	193
13	Ram 'em in again !	Michael Kerins	62	193
14	MalcolmX	Ahmed Hammoudy	69	192
15	Girl Guides U11's	Mark Fitton	64	191
16	Liverpool JUKE IHEE	Ikh-Ach Baljinnyam	65	191
17	FC Twista	Muhammad Saleem Pandor	56	187
17	DEMIGODS	Kerry Shillingford	75	187
19	mc dutch fc	michael kenny	42	186
20	counter attack	puteri balqiz	71	186

Well the Champions League draw just wrapped up and as usual there are some interesting groups.  If you guessed that Arsenal got the easiest draw again of any of the top teams then you were right.  I don't know how they do it but every year they get the cupcake draw.  The 'Group of Death' is tough to pick out.  Some may say it is group A with Inter and Tottenham while others may say it is group G with AC Milan and Real Madrid.  Either way they are both tricky groups.  Guess who got the second easiest group.  Barcelona.  Manchester United and Chelsea should be relatively pleased with their draws as they steered clear of the obviously tough teams.  Check out the draw here!

The dates for the games are as follows: September 14-15, 28-29; October 19-20; November 2-3, 23-24; December 7-8.

Group A
Inter Milan; Werder Bremen; Tottenham; Twente

Group B
Lyon; Benfica; Shalke; H. Tel-Aviv

Group C
Manchester United; Valencia; Rangers; Bursaspor

Group D
Barcelona; Panathinaikos; Kobenhaven; Rubin

Group E
Bayern Munich; Roma; Basel; CFR Cluj

Group F
Chelsea; Marseille; Spartak Moscow; Zilina

Group G
AC Milan; Real Madrid; Ajax; Auxerre

Group H
Arsenal; Shakhtar Donetsk; Braga; Partizan

The Champions League wrapped up today with the last bit of qualifying that needed to be done before the draw takes place tomorrow.  If you followed any action today then you know Tottenham overturned their loss to the Young Boys by beating them 4-0.  Would you believe it if I said Peter Crouch had a hat trick?  Well he did and he helped ensure that Tottenham will play at least six more games in Europe this season.  Not bad.

The Champions League draw takes place tomorrow and all thirty teams are split into four pots.  The first pot typically has the big teams such as Inter Milan and Manchester United.  That is not where the interesting parts of the draw lie.  Instead you should look at the 2nd and 3rd pot because there are a couple big teams in those pots as well that the big teams would rather avoid.  For instance in the 2nd pot you will find Werder Bremen, Real Madrid, and AS Roma.  Not exactly teams you want to be paired against if you are Arsenal or AC Milan from the 1st pot.  The 3rd pot is where you will find Tottenham, Rangers, and Bundesliga runners-up Shalke.  Again not teams you want to be paired with.  Should be interesting when the draw is played out tomorrow morning.

Check out UEFA.com for the complete list of teams.

Liverpool seem to be picking up right where they left off last season.  Mediocre at best.  There most recent set back came at the hands of 'kamikaze' spending Manchester City.  Losing 3-0 sends a message.  Sorry City fans it is not the message you are probably thinking.  Your performance was admirable but it is far too soon to label you title challengers.  The real message sent was that Liverpool are in crisis mode and Roy Hodgson is not helping matters.

When it was first announced that Roy Hodgson was brought on board I thought he could be a good fit.  He has tons of experience and has even been the head coach of Inter Milan back in the 90's.  He had been a good manager over at Fulham and maybe he could translate his success there to a much bigger club like Liverpool.  It did not take long for me to suspect that there may be some cause for concern over Hodgson's appointment.  When Fernando Torres was limping around at the World Cup his future was being debated.  Chelsea were looking to add the striker to their ranks and Liverpool were hoping to keep him.  Hodgson did not help matters when he said he that Torres had a problem with Liverpool and not him.  In fact, he 'hoped' Torres would decide to stay.  This was his first mistake.  I often think part of the reason for Manchester United's success is that Sir Alex runs a pretty strict program.  No one leaves Old Trafford unless Sir Alex approves.  Not the other way around.  And even if it is the other way around, no one else knows that.  What Hodgson should have done was either not said anything publicly and let Torres know that he is the gaffer at Liverpool, or he should have come out and said that Torres is going no where.  The decision is not for Torres to make.

Well I thought that may have been a one off.  Apparently I was wrong.  Soccernet reported that Javier Mascherano has gone on strike until he is sold to Barcelona.  What?  How does a player go on striker?  I won't get into how ridiculous it is for a player to go on strike when he makes in a week what most people make in a year.  Shame on you Javier.  I will, however, scold Hodgson for not putting his foot down when it comes to transfers at Liverpool.  At the end of the day, he should say who stays and who goes.  Why have the position of manager.  If he were Martin O'Neil he would have quit by now!  Hodgson did go on to say that Mascherano will not leave unless their valuation of the player is met.  Fair enough.  He also said that because of speculation about Mascherano's future his mind was not right for selection against City.  That is confusing because last week he was headed to Inter Milan and it didn't seem to stop him from putting in a typically industrious performance against Arsenal.  He was one of the best players on the pitch.  Now he is on strike refusing to play.  It is times like these I wish Jose Mourinho or Sir Alex Ferguson could deal swap seats for a day to deal with some of these players.  There certainly wouldn't be all of the confusion and the player along with the dressing room would know who is the manager and who is player.

Hodgson needs to get Liverpool back on the right track and quickly.  They have a couple of easy games coming up against West Brom and Birmingham before they take on Manchester United.  Hodgson needs to figure out what he is going to do with Gerrard as well.  He is not good enough (or cares enough) on defense to be effective and it only keeps him out of the attacking third of the pitch.  Either buy a decent center midfielder and push Gerrard up field or tell Mascherano he might want to wash his jock strap as they have a game on Sunday.  If they continue to have these problems there season may be over by October.  Not quite the challenge many Liverpool fans had in mind over the summer.

Nike has a series of new ads out called "Inside the Pro". These ads have various football superstars talking about different aspects of being a 'Pro'. Players such as Javier Mascherano, Patrice Evra, Didier Drogba, and Cristiano Ronaldo are a part of this new series. If you haven't noticed, Nike has been busy this summer with ads rolling non-stop. They just wrapped up a series with Manchester United entitled "Code Red". Check out what Landon Donovan had to say in his clip for Nike. You can check out the rest of the footballers and their stories here at Nike's football Youtube channel.

In the previous editions of EA Sports' FIFA it was impossible to play a full 11 v 11 match in "Be A Pro" career mode because you were not able to play as the goalkeeper.  All of that is about to change in EA's latest iteration of the game, FIFA 11. I was reading a review on IGN.com which shared their thoughts on being able to play as the keeper.  To sum it up they said it was satisfying to make a spectacular save but there wasn't enough action to play as the goalie on a regular basis.  Check out their net tending review here.



Here is a new trailer from Gamescom to hold you over until the September 28th release in the U.S.

James Milner has completed his long awaited move to Manchester City with Stephen Ireland moving in the opposite direction. The two clubs agreed a fee around $28m and the England international passed a medical late last night. Milner will take Stephen Ireland's #7 squad number and will likely make his debut this weekend against Liverpool. As for Ireland, he will be looking forward to some playing time after being relegated to City's bench for the last nine months.

With deadline day steadily approaching the transfer gossip is heating up in the Barclays Premier League. To keep you informed we are bringing the latest round up of potential movers and shakers right here to The American Treble. Until the transfer windows closes, we will continue to update you on all the big stories of players moving to and from the Premier League. With a couple of weeks left in the window, there is plenty of time for a few more big moves to be made.

Shay Given to Arsenal - $17M

Mark Schwarzer to Arsenal – $4.5M

Neymar to Chelsea - $39M

Ola Toivonen to Liverpool – $15.5M

Charles N'Zogbia to Sunderland - $15M

Eidur Gudjohnsen to Fulham - Loan

Ryan Shawcross to Tottenham - $15M

Robinho to Schalke - $28M

Jermaine Jenas to Juventus - Loan

Stay tuned to The American Treble for more Barclays Premier League transfer updates!