Mary Hannigan's Planet Football: You might have noticed that Liverpool's Peter Crouch is rather tall. You might also have noticed that nobody can ever write or talk about Peter Crouch without referring to the fact that he is: rather tall. Crouch has become used to it by now, but there must be times when he tires of it all.
We'd imagine, then, that while he's probably pleased that the Liverpool fans have gone to the trouble of coming up with a tune for him he'd have preferred if they'd focused on his goal-scoring prowess: "He's big, he's red, his feet hang out his bed, Peter Crouch, Peter Crouch."
PS When we found this photo of Crouch (right) celebrating England's goal against Austria naturally enough it was accompanied by the caption: 'Peter Crouch - head and shoulders above the rest'.
Quotes of the week
"I can't really remember what it was that I particularly liked about him. I had five pints of Guinness in the afternoon and it was all a bit blurred."
- Manager Steve Coppell on his scouting trip to see Kevin Doyle who scored his fourth goal in eight games as Reading beat Ipswich 2-0 in the Championship yesterday.
"The lad has come from nowhere. He has taken his chance he's what I call a low maintenance player. He comes in, trains and then goes home. He has no ego, he's a lovely lad."
- Doyle has obviously made a big impression on Coppell since.
"We will go there with a squad that, apart from Brazil maybe, I'm not sure is bettered."
- Michael Owen. It's the way he tells 'em.
"Klinsmann, why are we so bad?"
- A headline last week from German newspaper Bild.
"Welcome to Germany where you have nothing to fear from your hosts."
- And a headline from Bild am Sonntag, congratulating the latest batch of World Cup qualifiers. We're detecting a slight lack of faith in Jurgen's XI here.
"The word magic is not part of our vocabulary. We're not getting involved in this sort of talk. I want to hear words like efficiency, productivity, winning well, sweat and perspiration."
- Carlos Alberto Parreira on his efforts to transform Brazil into Bolton Wanderers.
"Equally unacceptable are the sort of wage negotiations that can produce the spectacle of semi-educated, sometimes foul-mouthed, players on £100,000 a week holding clubs to ransom until they get, say, £120,000."
- FIFA boss Sepp Blatter. Who on earth is he talking about?
"When you play at the level he is playing, he should be called to order. I wouldn't say that you should have to beat him . . . ".
- Blatter again, suggesting Alex and Sven should take the wooden spoon to young Wayne.
King of the islands
There were we, assuming that Israel's commendable enough third place finish in their World Cup qualifying group would have earned Avraham Grant unanimous support back home. Well, we assumed wrong. "Manipulations, politics, smiling in one direction while knifing people in the back in the other," wrote striker Pini Balili in a newspaper column. "He will never tell you what he really wants to say. You have to really think what he means when he says something." And the views of one of Grant's predecessors, Shlomo Scharf? "In four years he has beaten the Faroe Islands, Malta once and Cyprus. He is "king of the islands". The entire world is happy that we are not in the picture because they cannot bear to watch his revolting football." Cripes.
Even more quotes of the week
"Peter (Crouch) has the feet of a Rooney or a Ronaldo in that he has a lot of skills but I don't think he realised how well he could play."
- Jamie Redknapp. Is he taking the mick?
"Peter Crouch is six feet, seven inches tall - there would be something wrong if he wasn't good in the air."
- Alan Hansen. Indeed.
"Aston Villa are inferior to us and we'll show that this weekend."
- Birmingham City's Walter Pandiani last week. Yesterday? Birmingham 0, Villa 1.
"The body language suggests the players are not enjoying it. Even David Moyes' body language suggests that he is not enjoying it . . . maybe he needs to bring somebody in who is just crackers."
- Is Neville Southall looking for a job at Goodison Park?
"I'm only 21, I think Drogba is 27 and Hernan Crespo 30. So I have a big future in front of me at Chelsea."
- Carlton Cole, seemingly under the impression that Roman Abramovich won't buy anyone to replace Drogba and Crespo when they reach their sell-by date.
Appearing at a club near you
Did you happen upon reports about Italian football, err, star Alessandro Zarelli last week? The gist: Zarelli joined Lisburn Distillery at the beginning of the year after the club was contacted by a man claiming to be an Italian Football Federation official. He said that Zarelli was being offered to the club as part of an international loan scheme and that the IFF would pay £1,000 towards his upkeep. Lisburn happily accepted the offer.
Speaking to the club's website at the time Zarelli recalled his spells at Glasgow Rangers and Sheffield Wednesday, which ended only because of homesickness and a broken leg. Not a bad pedigree. But? As Lisburn manager Paul Kirk recalls, "he was rubbish, even in training he couldn't play." And off the pitch? Zarelli ran up sizeable bills and because that IFF £1,000 never turned up the club was left to pay them. He was politely asked to leave.
He next turned up at Bangor City in Wales but when their manager, Peter Davenport, contacted Rangers and Sheffield Wednesday to check out Zarelli's CV . . . they'd never heard of him. Next? Welsh club Connah's Quay Nomads. He spent two nights in a luxury hotel at the club's expense before officials were tipped off. Keep an eye out, he could soon be turning up at a club near you.
Plenty of bottle
When Udinese's Christian Obodo was sent off with three minutes to go in Saturday's game against Siena he really couldn't complain - he did, after all, hit someone. An opponent? Well, no. A stretcher bearer who came to carry him off when he went down injured. "We were carrying the patient on the stretcher, he turned round and struck me on the nose with a bottle of water," said the injured party, "I cannot say if it was voluntary or not, but it certainly hurt."
