According to THIS REPORT FROM AMERICAN CHRONICLE MLS and S.U.M. are in negotiations with "love 'em or wish them dead" EPL giants Manchester United for a five or six game summer tour of the US which would include an appearance as the opponent for the MLS All Star Game.

I'm on record as stating that the current "US against the world" format is cheezy and dumb, but if nothing else a match with ManU would certainly get some attention.

It will also be interesting to see what the new CBA says about the All Star Team.

The reason there were 36 players plus however many alternates chosen every year, despite the obvious fact that something like two dozen MLS Stars would have had to go down with injuries before some of those guys ever got near the game was of course because the old agreement stipulated that, for salary bonus reasons, two complete teams plus alternates had to be named.

So when the league decided to only field one team, they still had to name – and give bonuses to (assuming it was stipulated in their contract) – a bunch of other guys.

Some MLS players have been drawing ASG checks for years and still have never donned a uniform.

In other news:

In the rich tradition of all MLS announcements, Cohiba Don has called the ink-stained wretches of the press together for what is now called a "media conference" so that he can announce to a breathless world that MLS Cup will be played in Toronto this year.

Like I keep saying: when MLS makes an announcement when everyone hasn't known the whole story for several days, that in itself will be a groundbreaking story.

I can't seem to find an official announcement, but apparently Pat Noonan is now a Seattle Sounder.

The guy who replaced – as Fake Sigi called him – "Creepy Jose" as the Seattle Times blogger HAS SOME QUOTES wherein Noonan tells us all how grateful he is to have landed with Seattle.

Then again, he's undoubtedly grateful to not have to go get an honest job. Hard to blame him.

RSL middie Javier Morales was named MLS PLAYER OF THE WEEK today in recognition of his two goal and one assist showing against The San Josers.

The press relase notes that, since Robby Findlay was the PotW for the final week of 2009, this is technically RSLs' second such award in a row, but here at Archers' House O' Blogging, that's what's known as weak sauce.

Maybeat some point this season you won't be able to predict who the PotW is going to be simply by scanning the stats – assuming that you can find them someplace – and note who scored the most goals.

Strange as it may seem to the collective wise men who constitute the voters, sometimes a defender or some such who scored – are you sitting down? – NO GOALS AT ALL deserves recognition.

I can hire almost any sixth grader to count goals scored and declare a winner. Somehow, we all expect a bit more from supposed "experts"

And so it goes……