Both Manchester United and Liverpool are tracking the progress of former Chelsea holding midfielder Lassana Diarra. Hamit Altintop has become a target for Spurs and a host of other clubs including Atletico Madrid as his contract with Bayern Munich is due to expire in a couple of months. With Joe Hart being called back to Manchester City as a result of the injury suffered by Shay Given, Birmingham are now looking at loaning United custodian Ben Foster.

Elsewhere, Wolfburg forward Edin Dzeko has dropped a hint for the Premier League clubs by stating that he would be interested in moving away from his current club at the end of the season. Arsenal have opened talks with Gael Clichy over the possibility of a new deal. Both Real Madrid and Barcelona have been monitoring Clichy’s progress and Wenger would not want to lose the French left back.

AZ Alkmaar’s £5m-rated forward Jermain Lens is attracting a lot of attention from Wigan, Wolves, Sunderland and Newcastle. Sunderland boss Steve Bruce has his eyes on Paraguay international midfielder Cristian Riveros who could well become the Black Cats’ first signing of the new season. And finally, in what could be the biggest transfer of the summer, Barcelona are edging closer to the services of Spanish star striker David Villa.

Milner signed a four year deal with Villa when he signed in the summer of 2008. After signing for the Midlands club, Milner has grown from strength to strength and is expected to be a part of Capello’s squad for the 2010 World Cup. He has represented Villa 63 times scoring 8 goals. Villa are wanting to offer Milner a new deal to ward off potential suitors. Milner has made a seamless transition into central midfield where he has been playing for the last few weeks. Visit Partybets for Aston Villa’s betting odds for their next game.

Villa are also looking to bring in reinforcements over the summer. They are particularly interested in Ivory Coast winger Kader Keita who plays for Galatasaray. Keita joined the Turkish club from Lyon last summer in spite of Everton showing considerable interest. The 23-year old has become a huge fans favourite at Galatasaray but a switch to the Premier League can’t be ruled out. Arsenal, Everton, Villa and Manchester City are all interested in his signature.

The likes of Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool were quick to voice their dissatisfaction over the suggestion. Other teams in the top half were considerate enough to give it a thought with Martin O’Neill describing it as “interesting” and one that “people might go for”.

Any change in the current format would have needed the approval of 14 of the 20 Premier League clubs. With the television deal in place for the next three years, any change would have reflected only after the current deal expired.

Also, the general consensus at the meeting was that the team finishing in fourth position after a gruelling season deserved to play in the Champions League. The congestion in the English football calendar did not help the change at all. Premier League bosses feared that this change would reduce the significance of the FA’s other tournaments especially the FA Cup. Why mend something that ain’t broken?

Unlike City, both Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa booked their place in the next round with wins over Bolton and Crystal Palace respectively. Tottenham cruised to a 4-0 win against the Trotters. Roman Pavlyuchenko continued his resurgence and scored twice. Own goals from Jaaskelainen and O’Brien also contributed to Bolton’s downfall.

Aston Villa secured a battling 3-1 win over Crystal Palace. John Carew scored two late penalties for the Villians. Agbonlahor had given Villa the lead late in the first half. But Darren Ambrose equalised from the spot for Palace before Carew took the game away from the Championship side.
In another closely contested replay, Reading progressed to the sixth round with a 3-2 win over a strong West Bromwich Albion side.

Vertonghen had spells with VK Tielrode and Geerminal Beerschot in his native Belgium before joining Ajax as a 16 year old in 2003. He was sent out on loan to RKC Waalwijk to garner valuable first team experience in 2006. He was a rare starter in the 2007-08 season but made his mark the following season after the departure of Johnny Heitinga.

Vertonghen is currently contracted to Ajax till June 2013. A versatile player, Vertonghen plays in midfield while donning the colours of the Belgian national team.

Real are also tracking the progress of Vertonghen’s team mate Christian Eriksen. The Danish youngster is widely hailed as one of the future stars of the Eredivisie. He made his senior debut last month against NAC Breda and has also attracted the attention of Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal.

Eriksen’s contract with Ajax is due to expire next summer but the club are working towards giving him a new deal. Head coach Martin Jol has already expressed his desire to keep Eriksen at the Amsterdam Arena for as long as possible.

Eriksen joined Ajax from OB in 2008 for a reported €1m fee. The 18 year old has already represented Denmark at U-17, U-18 and U-19 levels.

But comments made by Cesc’s father have added to the confusion. Fabregas Sr. admitted that his son would be open to a move to Camp Nou at the end of the season. Arsene Wenger though has been caught in the crossfire. He came out trying his best to douse the fire by saying ‘nothing plus nothing is nothing’.

Cesc Fabregas was a part of the Barcelona youth system and scored at an alarming rate for a midfielder. He moved to Arsenal in September 2003 sensing that his participation at Barcelona would be limited. With the emotional attachment towards the Catalan club, a move to the Nou Camp can never be ruled out.

Lionel Messi break the highest score since the inception of the award by scoring 473 points from a possible of 480 points. It meant that at least 89 of the journalists picked Lionel Messi as their first choice to win the award. The winning margin between winner L.Messi and runner-up C.Ronaldo is 240, the highest points gap aparts the top 2 place in history too. 2nd runner-up Xabi scored 170, 63 points behind C.Ronaldo.

On a years without World Cup and European Championships, the players from European Champion League winning club will have slight advantage ahead the rest. Just like the previous 2 years where the Ballon d’Or goes to the player from Champion League winning club, C.Ronaldo from Manchester United in 08/09 and Kaka from AC Milan in 07/08.

Other than winning European Champion League, Barcelona also completed a treble, by winning both Spanish La Liga and Copa del Rey. Barcelona became the first team in Spanish history to win three competitions in the same season. This see why3 players out of the top 4 came from Barcelona, with 4th place go to Andre Iniesta(149) and 5th place go to former Barcelona Striker Samuel Eto’o(75) who also part of the Champion League winning team, bagged 30 goals in Spanish La Liga for Barcelona last season before moving to Inter Milan as part of a trade of Ibrahimovic deal.

Lionel Messi is the first Argentinam to win the prestigious Ballon d’Or award. Messi, 22, is the sixth Barcelona player to take the award following Luis Suárez(1960), Johan Cruyff(1973, 1974), Hristo Stoichkov(1994), Rivaldo(1999) and Ronaldinho(2005) picked up the awards. Previously, Lionel Messi received second runner-up in 2007, then runner-up in 2008, and goes 1 better again this year to win the award.

Lionel Messi has improved tremendously after manager Josep Guardiola take charged in Nou Camp in the beginning of 08/09 season. A clear example will be Barcelona vs Man Utd in the Champion League semi-final in 07/08 season where Messi was completely being shut down and eventually Barcelona lost 1-0 to Man Utd. Last season, we saw a repeat of Barcelona vs Man Utd again, but its was the Champion League final this time round, and Messi went on to score the 2nd goal for Barcelona to win 2-0 against Man Utd.

Seeded Pots – South Africa, Brazil, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Argentina and England
2nd Pots – Australia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Honduras, Mexico, USA and New Zealand
3rd Pots – Algeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay
4th Pots – Denmark, France, Greece, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland

South Africa, as host country  automatically being part of the seeded side and will be in Group A. Country from the rest of the pots will be praying hard to be in the same groups with them. Group of death will most likely be the group where Portugal and France in, unless South Africa is with either of the 2 country.

Chance of Draw
Lowest Fifa Ranking group – South Africa, North Korea, Paraguay and Slovakia
Highest Fifa Ranking group – Spain, USA, Cameroon and Portugal
Most Easy group - South Africa, New Zealand, Paraguay and Slovenia.
Group of Death – Spain, USA, Ivory Coast and France

Rule of Draw
No 2 nation from the same region will be in the same group other than Europe.
- Brazil and Argentina cannot be in same group with Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay
- South Africa cannot be in same group with Algeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria

Asia
Australia, Japan, North Korea and South Korea

Europe
Denmark, England, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland

North America
Honduras, Mexico and USA

Oceania
New Zealand

South America
Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay

All the tickets for the country to South Africa World Cup 2010 has been finalise. Among all the nation, South Africa(86) has the lowest Fifa ranking in the World Cup which followed by North Korea(84) and New Zealand(77). As usual we got some strong nation being left out this time just like Holland missed World Cup 2006. Both Russia and Croatia was left out this time.

Let take a look of which Star Player shall missed out the chance to feature in the World Cup 2010

Peter Cech
Considering 1 of the best goalkeepers in the world along with Buffon and Casillas. Czech Republic manage to take part in World Cup 2006, but with a list of veteran players retire from international after the tournament, Czech Republic failed to qualify from the group stage with 4 win, 4 draw and 2 lost. Smicer, Koller, Jankulovski and Nedved has all been missed by the fans.

Ibrahimovic
The 08/09 ISA top scorer, who has so far impressed for his new club Barcelona has bagged 7 goals in the La Liga. His transfer to Barcelona have cost a windfall to Inter, consider Eto is as good as Ibrahimovic, his total transfer cost added up €69million which see him hold the record for the second highest transfer fee in football history, only behind C.Ronaldo. A 2 goalless draw with Portugal see Sweden out of the World Cup, which also saw Henrik Larrson bid farewell before hanging up his boots.

Arshavin
A magnificent performance in Euro 08 which lead Russia to semi-final make the world notice of him. Follow from his transfer to Arsenal, he make an impact such as scoring 4 goals against Liverpool in Anfield at club level. Hiddink has previously lead Holland, South Korea and Australia to World Cup. With Hiddink coaching the Russia side, and have Akinfeev and Zhirkov in the team, they remain confident in qualify for the World Cup despite needed to play the Playoff against Slovenia. A 2-2 on aggregate which see them lose due to away goal, leave them stunned.

Berbatov
The most expensive foreigner player in Manchester United history, didn’t manage to lead his country side into the World Cup. Bulgaria only manage to get 3 win, 5 draw and 2 lose in the group stage, which sit 3rd behind Italy and Ireland. Too bad, Bulgaria doesn’t have much star player to lead them through.

Adebayor
The Togo striker which leads his country to World Cup 2006, failed to do it again. They lost the spot to Cameroon in Africa Group A with 5 points. The Man City striker has so far impressed in this season for his new clubs. Its a pity that he shall be missed on the biggest stage in football tournament.

The highly anticipate match between Liverpool and Man City which either side win it, shall moved up to 4th position ended with a 2-2 draw. Both sides are on a poor run in the league which see them picked up only 5 points each in last 5 matches. Liverpool looked to be the favourite to win the match with number of players return from injury after the 2 week internation break.

Liverpool started off the game brilliantly with Steven Gerrard making the difference for them. But injury curse still shined on Liverpool, which see both Agger and Babel limp off the field in the mean of 10 minutes. Anfield debutant Kyrgiakos and Benayoun replaced the injury duo. Barely 20 minutes into the game, Liverpool are left with just 1 substitute to make for the game. Since then, Man City take control of the rest of the first half which seem to be a boring goalless first half.

Man City sub out Onuoha for captain Toure which suffered some knock before the break during half time. Liverpool took just 4 minute after the break to make the lead, with Skrtel strike home his first goal for Liverpool with a freekick taken by Gerrard. Adebayor equalise with a header from corner on 69th minute for the visitors, before Ireland flick past Reina on 76th minute for Man City to take the lead. Within a minutes, Liverpool response back with Benayoun picked up the loose ball and fire into the empty net to level the scoreline. Lucas missed an injury time free header to win it for the Red.

Liverpool main problem still remain in striker, where Ngog clearly can’t fill up Torres role. How to rely on a striker to score where it took him 74 minute to try his first attempt which fire the ball high up into the crowds. Guess a sale of Dossena and unstable Babel shall give the club some money to fund a new striker in January market reopen.

Man City main problem is  in defence. where they only managed to keep 1 cleansheet in their last 10 matches. Shay Given so far has been marvellous, if not for him, Man City will concede more goals than they have been until now. Currently Mark Hughes rely on Lescott, Toure, Bridge, Zabaleta, Richards and Onuoha in his back 4. Not a surprise if Mark Hughes make some defender signing in January.

A busy week coming ahead for Liverpool, where they need to travel to Debrecen on Tuesday for a must win match in order to keep their champion league campaign alive.  While they still need to face Everton in a derby match at Goodison Park on Sunday looking for their first win in November. Man City has a better fixture which see them likely to clinch their first win in last 7 matches against Hull at home, but with Arsenal and Chelsea coming in the following week.