Falling foul of Judge Jack

You might have read the interview with Craig Johnston (the former Liverpool player who has made his fortune from inventing the Predator boot) in these pages last week. Our favourite bit was when he gave an insight into Jack Charlton's unique managerial style.

Johnston flew from Australia to Middlesbrough for a trial when he was 15, but at half-time in his first youth game the team were 3-0 down. "Jack was seething. He had a go at everyone and then he said to me: 'And as for you, you kangaroo, you can **** off right now. You're the worst player I've seen in my life.'"

But what had Charlton to say when Johnston was transferred to Liverpool five years later for a then record fee of £570,000? "I always knew the kangaroo would bounce back." One of a kind.

Incidentally, sounds to us like Jack is well qualified to work as a music critic. Asked by the Guardian if he preferred Kylie or Britney, he replied: "Me favourite? You've got to admire people, so Kylie. She appears to be a very nice lass who's made the best of herself without having a really fantastic ability," he said, echoing his view of Tony Cascarino.

We think there's a place for Jack on the Pop Idol judging panel ("you can **** off right now, you're the worst singer I've heard in me life"?).

Robson guestimates

Planet Football is in no position to scoff at those who struggle with simple maths - we even need a calculator to add up the most undemanding of sums (e.g., Leeds' points total this season). So, when Private Eye quoted Bobby Robson declaring (after a 0-0 draw) that "we had 10 times as many shots on target as Bolton and they had none at all" we needed the calculator again to work out that: 10 x 0 = an untroubled Bolton goalkeeper.

Quotes of the week

"Robbie Fowler has been scoring goals like that since before he was almost born."

- Yep, as you guessed: Kevin Keegan.

"Nobody's too good to go down - but Leeds won't go down: they've got too many good players."

- Yep again: David O'Leary.

"Today's been a good day for Wayne, but he's understood that on another day it could've been a bad day."

- Nope, not Keegan - David Moyes.

"On another night they could have won tonight."

Nope, not O'Leary - Graeme Souness.

"Don't worry everybody, I'm still here!"

- Claudio Ranieri, of course (emerging from the dressing-room following a 40-minute "chat" with Roman Abramovich after the defeat to Liverpool. God, we love this man).

Pleat's geography lessons

First he declared "I don't even know where Mali is". Then: "The Millwall player, Tim Cahill, he's played for . . . tell me the country, oh, you must know . . . he's played for an African country. Samosa, I think." So, Pleat reckons Cahill played international football for a fried triangular pastry that may be filled with vegetables or meat or a combination of both, rather than Samoa?

Bad sign language

Hats off to Ladbrokes for showing some smart marketing initiative by putting ads in Japanese around Highbury, in an attempt to boost their profile out east. It's just a pity that the pitch-side hoarding was upside down during the first game.

More quotes of the week

"Burnley's fan Alastair Campbell watches his team in action."

- The Yahoo caption on a photo of Tony Blair's former communications director. Is Burnley's support base that low?

"I'm not going to offer excuses about the number of missing players we've had on a regular basis or referees decisions going against us in key games . . ."

- . . . but (Gerard Houllier).

"Basically, if we didn't have Alan Shearer we'd be looking at the Nationwide League."

- Shay Given, failing to gush about all but one of his Newcastle team-mates.

"We need O'Neill, but the end of the season is not soon enough. We need him now."

- Tory leader and Liverpool fan Michael Howard, hoping Martin O'Neill is to Gerard Houllier as he was to Iain Duncan Smith.

"He is fatter than some of the coaching staff here."

- A Leeds "insider" insinuating that Georgi Kinkladze ate too many mince pies over Christmas. His planned two-week trial at Elland Road was ended by Eddie Gray after three days.

"It's almost a year since we last met and I want to share my thoughts with you about where we are and where we want to go. I don't propose to talk at length, instead I hope this speech will be like a mini-skirt: short enough to grab your attention and long enough to cover the subject."

- Gerard Houllier addressing Liverpool's a.g.m. Saucy divil.

Kewell on O'Leary

Harry Kewell can be found reminiscing about his time at Leeds during David O'Leary's reign in the current edition of Four-Four-Two. "I was not disappointed to see him get the sack," he said, in a warm tribute to his former boss, "when he first took over he was a good man, but then something happened."

Kewell went on to speak equally fondly of the chats he used to have with O'Leary. "I had conversations with him that left me bamboozled. He was saying things that I didn't understand. I was left gobsmacked half the time. I would just shake my head and think 'what?' He was my boss and I couldn't argue with him, but I just used to sit there in disbelief."

Mind you, after O'Leary's comments following last week's game against Manchester United - "It was nice to see Roy and Ruud with their tracksuits on but not so nice when I saw them undoing their buttons. Once they had the full artillery out you could see their true quality" - we, well, shook our heads too and said 'whaaaaat?'

Rooney gets heavy abuse

We're beginning to feel sorry for Wayne Rooney. Last week the English FA announced that it would not be taking any action against Norwich following their FA Cup tie against Everton. The first division club's supporters had been accused of chanting racial abuse at Everton's Joseph Yobo, but after studying a tape of the game it was discovered that they weren't shouting "you black bastard" at Yobo, only "you fat bastard" at Rooney. Case dropped.

Medals come cheap

You might have thought that Leeds' best hope of seeing a championship medal again would be if they won the first division title next season. Not so. If the club has €6,000 to spare (which it probably doesn't) it can put in a winning bid for Mel Sterland's 1992 league medal which he is selling on eBay. He's also flogging his Rangers' championship medal - already 11 points behind Celtic. Well, Alex McLeish might be tempted to pay a visit to www.ebay.com.