WHAT THE? is my weekly Premiership review column where I write about the crap I found interesting in the latest round of Prem games. This is about me, not you, so I don’t want to hear you bloody whine about it.

• Tottenham used three early goals to beat Stoke 3-1. This win lifts Tottenham up to 13th place in the table and a little breathing room from the relegation zone.

• Aston Villa has pulled five points clear of Arsenal for the critical 4th place in the Prem table with a 1-0 win at Portsmouth.

• Arsenal needed a 92nd minute goal by Van Persie to secure a 1-1 draw at Everton.

• Liverpool continued to produce tie games with a 1-1 game against Wigan. All these draws are starting to catch with Liverpool as they dropped to 3rd in the table.

• With a 2-0 win against Middlesbrough, Chelsea has regained 2nd place in the table. Chelsea and Liverpool are currently tied with 48 points but Chelsea has the edge with goal differential.

• With a 5-0 drubbing of West Ham, Manchester United has gone 2 points clear at the top of the table with a game in hand.

Major League Soccer plans to announce the next two expansion teams in March. The next two clubs will kick off their season in 2011 and are currently between Vancouver, Ottawa, Miami, St. Louis and Portland.

There has been news that Spanish giant Barcelona FC is part of the Miami bid. It is interesting to see that two of the five cities are located in Canada.

The two new teams in 2011 will bring the league up to 18 teams.

Thursday nights are not working for ESPN or MLS. Traditional a night of recorded shows on ESPN, the Thursday night MLS games have seen a continual drop in viewers. The plan is to show MLS games after other live sporting events in hopes that viewers will stick around and watch.

The NFL has built Monday Night Football into a brand. Often highlighting an above average game between two teams with large fan bases has helped turn MNF into a successful marketing venture.

The MLS has to do more than just move the night. There is a larger excitement factor that needs to be incorporated into the season. Perhaps inserting more cash into bringing higher profile players into the league. Beckham was a good idea till he was put on a team that can’t even make the playoffs. Perhaps you spread out these players instead of putting them all in LA and New York.

WHAT THE? is my weekly Premiership review column where I write about the crap I found interesting in the latest round of Prem games. This is about me, not you, so I don’t want to hear you bloody whine about it.

• Aston Villa kept up their excellent play with a 2-1 win over Sunderland. This places Villa 3 points clear of Arsenal to retain forth in the table.

• Man City is starting to find their winning way again with a 1-0 win against Wigan. Robinho scored the winner which might be his last for a bit. Robinho went back to Brazil for “family reasons” without the clubs approval after a bust up with manager Mark Hughes. This little row also happened immediately after the Man City deal with AC Milan’s Kaka fell through. Kaka is a brazilian teammate of Robinho.

• Hull has lost its early season spark with another loss. This week it was a 2-1 defeat to Arsenal who remain in the fifth spot in the table.

• Chelsea needed a goal in the 94th minute to beat Stoke 2-1. Chelsea is still third in the table, 2 points behind the league leaders.

• Liverpool continued the trend of draws with a 1-1 game with Everton. How can Liverpool expect to win the league if they can not pull in a win against Everton?

• Tottenham managed a 1-1 tie with Portsmouth to sit in a five-way point tie at the bottom of the table. Goal differential is the only thing keeping them out of the relegation zone.

• With a goal in the 90th minute, Manchester United beat Bolton 1-0 to sit atop the Prem table over Liverpool. Currently, Man U are only leading the Prem on goal differential but does have a game in hand.

ESPN (owned by the Walt Disney Company) is planning to join the bidding for the rights to show English Premiership games between 2010 and 2013. This comes as a great sign for those in Columbus, Ohio as many of us have lost the Fox Soccer Channel because Wide Open West decided to kill that channel. The other cable options in Columbus suck so our only option is going to a pub that carries the EPL.

One of the national teams future stars is drawing some more interest in Europe. Jozy Altidore, who recently transferred to Spanish side Villarreal, has been contacted by English Premier side Everton for a loan move. Everton is currently suffering with striker issues and was hoping to bring the young American on to help get them through the rest of the season.

Unfortunately Villarreal rejected the loan offer even though Jozy has only played in several games all season (and I’m not including those fixtures where Villarreal played semi-pro teams). If Villarreal aren’t going to give him regular playing time, it would be nice to see Altidore loaned to a team (in the EPL none-the-less) that would benefit from his skills. Everton were one of the clubs interested in Jozy before he made the jump from the MLS to the Spanish top division.

Jozy was also named Ones to Watch in 2009 by FIFA. Lets hope that Altidore will get some more playing time in the near future so he will be fully prepared for the 2010 World Cup.

WHAT THE? is my weekly Premiership review column where I write about the crap I found interesting in the latest round of Prem games. This is about me, not you, so I don’t want to hear you bloody whine about it.

Since my cable got rid of the Fox Soccer Channel, it is really hard to watch these games….stupid cable.

• Liverpool has continued adding draws to their record with a 0-0 scoreline at newly promoted Stoke. Liverpool has had the opportunity to put this season almost out of reach but continue to make minor slip ups….LIKE DRAWING WITH NEWLY PROMOTED CLUBS.

• Hulls great form at the beginning of the season has continued to slip. Everton managed a 2-0 win at home against Hull to maintain sixth place and just one spot from Europe.

• Aston Villa has retained forth place in the Prem table with a 2-1 win against bottom dwellers West Brom. Villa’s current form will give them an excellent chance to gain a spot in Champions League qualifying next term.

• Wigan beat Tottenham 1-0 which had two outcomes. The first being Tottenham still sitting in the relegation zone. The second outcome was the vicious outburst by Tottenham skipper Redknapp that he will need new players if Tottenham wants to stay up in the Prem next season. I guess the honeymoon period is over.

• The big game this weekend was Chelsea visiting Manchester United. It was a game till the second half and finished with an impressive (or lackluster if you are a Chelsea fan) 3-0 win for Manchester United. Man U are curently 5 points behind leaders Liverpool but have 2 games in hand. The first of those makeup games are this Wednesday against Wigan. If Man U were to win both of the games they would be leading the league by a point.

Philadelphia is hoping to become a member of the MLS in 2010 and is even building a soccer specific stadium to go along with the new team. The ground was broken in December on the new stadium but the current credit issue might kill the expansion team before it even has a name.

“If the [financial] markets tank next month, then we won’t build this thing. We’ll be out USD 15 million and everyone goes home,” said Nick Sakiewicz, CEO and operating partner of Keystone Sports and Entertainment LLC. Keystone Sports are the company trying to bring a team to Philly.

Lets hope everything works out so we can expand the league and growth of the sport in the States.

The Columbus Crew new logo project has gathered a lot of support and attention in the last month or so, mostly due to being featured on epically prominent design blog Brand New. We’ve had tons of smart, critical commentary, which led to this new and (in my opinion) improved version of the logo.

Using the community’s feedback, like-minded designer Brian Gundell voluntarily worked out many of the kinks in my initial idea. Together we came to this design, which I like because it’s true(r) to the original purpose of the project: create a conceptually identical logo that looks first-rate, clean and crisp. You can read about the details of this design in the photos section of our Facebook Group.