Keegan has Dunne it againThe Curse of Kevin Keegan? Struck again. Thursday: "Richard has done absolutely nothing wrong, nothing at all," he said, insisting that Dunne was good enough to fight his way back into the Republic of Ireland and Manchester City teams this season.
"He has just got to keep his head down and keep going. So far his training has been excellent, his attitude excellent and his time-keeping excellent." Three days later? Club statement: "Manchester City have suspended Richard Dunne for a serious breach of club discipline." Oh Kev.
It was a slightly more encouraging weekend for another Home Farm old boy, Stephen McPhail, who was finally given a run-out by Terry Venables, coming on as a sub against Manchester United. Gary Kelly, though, must be ruing not moving on before the transfer deadline - he hasn't left the bench since the season kicked off.
Man of the week? Got to be Clinton Morrison. His two late goals at Anfield, that earned Birmingham a draw against Liverpool, have made him popular enough at his new club - if he scores the winner in tonight's derby against beloved neighbours Aston Villa we predict that they'll rename St Andrews after him.
Keane's sick note
It's always nice to see a professional footballer take time out from his busy schedule to give an autograph to a fan. And Robbie Keane, fair play to him, isn't fussy about what he signs for his admirers. According to the London Evening Standard Keane (Mick McCarthy, Gary Doherty, Gary Breen and Dean Kiely) shared a plane from Dublin to London, after returning from Moscow, with a group of chaps who had spent the weekend in Temple Bar and were still trousered when the flight took off (during which they sang "we hate Roy Keane", between lager-fuelled hiccups).
"Keane was good-natured enough to sign the airline sick bag ("Best wishes from Robbie", it said on the happily empty vomit bag brought back from the first class section by an obliging stewardess)," explained the Standard, under the heading "Pass the sick bag, Robbie". By all accounts the bag, alas, wasn't empty by the time the flight touched down in London's City Airport.
Kernaghan's comic roots
Hearty thanks to young Shane for alerting us to "the greatest fact ever told", as he put it, one he spotted in an article by Harry Pearson in the Guardian. Take it away, Harry: "Alan Kernaghan was the nephew of Jackie Wright, the little bald chap Benny Hill used to slap on the head. This latter piece of trivia has no relevance whatsoever to the theme of this article but is the sort of information that if bottled up for too long can cause a hernia."
Kernaghan and Uncle Slap Head, eh? Sublime.
Quotes of the Week
"I hope Leeds win today because of those players down there, because most of them, in the nicest possible way, are mine." - Sky Sports' guest David O'Leary on Saturday morning. Will someone tell this man, in the nicest possible way, that he's not Leeds manager any more?
"We don't have players who do that." - Alex Ferguson, insisting that no Manchester United player ever uses the elbow. Indeed.
Rodney Marsh: "Yeeees!"
Jeff Stelling: "Is it a goal, Rodney?"
Rodney: "No, the ref's blown for half-time." - Sky Sports' pundit Rodney Marsh during the West Brom v Southampton game on Saturday, "the worst game of football I've ever seen", as he described it.
"People say he's Jesus Christ, but he's not." - Bobby Robson on Craig Bellamy, recently resurrected from the injury list.
"Duran Duran? I like all their songs, especially Rio, although, obviously, I can't sing that too loudly around the training ground now." - Leeds' Mark Viduka.
"I found him to be very normal, very human. He's not a Martian, like people say." - New Manchester United goalkeeper Ricardo Lopez after being introduced to the little green man with "seven" on his back, David Beckham.
Graham's tactical retreat
Most outstanding exchange of the week? No contest: this one, as heard by Football 365 during Sky Sports' coverage of the Arsenal v Manchester City game.
George Graham: "I've been doing my tactical research and no side has ever won a major trophy playing 4-5-1. In fact, no one has ever won anything who weren't playing 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1."
Richard Keys: "Fascinating. And what about Brazil? They won the World Cup playing 4-3-3, didn't they?"
At which point scarlet-cheeked George, "looking down at notes", was lost for words.
Striking error
Richard Burke was browsing through www.spanish-soccer.com last week when he came upon a yarn he reckoned we might enjoy - and he wasn't wrong. Las Palmas' new signing Gustavo Reggi stepped off his plane expecting to be greeted by hundreds of supporters welcoming him to his new footballing home. But? There was nobody there. Gutted. But, hundreds of supporters had gathered to welcome him. Problem? Reggi had booked a flight to Parma, "which, as every good geography student knows, is off the east coast of Spain, rather than to Las Palmas, which is in the Canary Islands, 1,150kms off the coast of Africa". Reggi is a striker - cue Jimmy Tarbuck-esque jokes along the lines of "hope he can find his way to goal". We'll watch with interest.
More Quotes of the Week
"Not many teams are going to come to Arsenal and take anything -home or away." - Courtesy of Dangerhere.com, Kevin Keegan, naturally.
"We don't have any Kenny Dalglish or Denis Law anymore. In Germany we call it - like the nice Beatles record - yesterday. It was yesterday." - Bertie Vogts explains why Scotland had, em, a hard day's night against the Faroe Islands.
"Can you imagine a tool factory where someone comes in and takes a prize piece of equipment, uses it over the weekend for free, and returns it broken on the Monday. Is that right?" - Graeme Souness (irked after his star player returned injured from Republic of Ireland duty) likens Damien Duff to a tool.
"I expect my players to be dead after a game." - Arsenal Wenger. To which Liverpool and Man United fans say: "In our dreams Arsene, in our bleedin' dreams."
"We've had three stone bonkers this season." - Terry Venables, referring to Bowyer, Woodgate and Mills (no, no: referring to three penalties Leeds should have been awarded this season).
"If you created a template for the ideal striker to put into a computer, like they do with cars, and it then sends out the perfect aerodynamic hatchback, it would come out with Thierry Henry and Nicolas Anelka as the perfect strikers" - Kevin Keegan? Stop. Before they take you away. In the back of the perfect aerodynamic hatchback.
