PLANET SOCCER:THAT'D be Aston Villa's England Under-19 defender Nathan Baker, currently on loan at Lincoln.
As a Villa player he was allocated five tickets for the League Cup final against Manchester United at Wembley later this month. Now, it’s not uncommon for players to, well, discretely flog their tickets to the highest bidder, but Nathan tried to sell his on . . . Facebook. At £200 apiece. “The club is saddened that he has been so foolish,” said a club spokesman, announcing that they had taken the tickets off him.
Loyal Celtic fans greet the 'Messiah'
ENGLISH football columnist James Lawton reckoned last week that Robbie Keane’s move to Celtic was less than wise, indeed he concluded that it was hard not to view it “as a joke”. Nevertheless, he spoke of the Irish captain being hailed as a ‘Messiah’ on his arrival at the club around midnight where, he told us, he “was greeted by an estimated 2,000 loyalists”. Jeez, no wonder Robbie looked nervous.
TZOFIT Grant, wife of Portsmouth manager Avram, is, by all accounts, a lively character, perhaps best known for the time she drank her own urine on her Israeli TV show. When it was revealed last week that her husband had been spotted visiting an, eh, massage parlour her reaction was, naturally enough, sought. Did she lose the plot? Well, not quite.
"He's the manager of Portsmouth. Do you know how tough that is? He's a great manager stuck in a crappy team. He works so hard, he needs two massages a day – and from two women, not one." Quotes of the week
“If Arsenal want to become champions, how can they select Arshavin as centre forward?”
– Eh, Andrey Arshavin.
“We have to get this monkey off our back – it’s grown from a chimp, to an orangutan to a mountain gorilla – but we must make sure it does not make us play with fear.”
– Burnley’s Clarke Carlisle goes ape over the team’s away record.
“Philippe was as good as we were going to get in our situation.”
– Everton manager David Moyes, all a-tingle, hails new loan-signing Philippe Senderos.
“I felt I served my time at Blackburn Rovers.”
– West Ham new-boy Benni McCarthy on completing his sentence at Ewood Park.
“I like Cristian Melinte, but I hope to never see him on a football pitch again. He’s hopeless and I’ve instructed my directors to send him to Serie B.”
– Palermo president Maurizio Zamparini stops somewhat short of hailing the Romanian defender as the new Paolo Maldini.
“I’ve kept my mouth shut publicly for the right reasons because I don’t know what I’m going to say sometimes.”
– Stephen Hunt on no-commenting his way through transfer speculation linking him with a move to Wolves.
“This was a typical Championship game. Both teams had chances, it finished 1-1 and we all go home. Boring.”
– Roy Keane on finding a cure for insomnia.
Phillips not so sharp on Sky
SKY Sports reporter: “Three sub appearances in more than three months – how do you stay so sharp?”
Kevin Phillips: “I don’t – I’m knackered.”
The ancient Birmingham striker (well, 36) after his two goals against Wolves yesterday.
Distressing story of lost child
FOOTBALL 365 sent us in the direction of a sad tale on the Blackpool Gazette website last week, one that recounted the story of "a distressed 11-year-old child" who ended up getting lost after being dropped off in the wrong spot by a school bus. "I was so angry," said his mother, "he was upset because he didn't know where he was." In time we hope Keane Cantona-Murray recovers from the ordeal – and that he never becomes a Manchester City fan.
More quotes of the week
“McDonald has many millions of neurons and he can only improve by training together with Zanetti, Cambiasso, Materazzi and Samuel. If someone works with them and doesn’t manage to learn something it means that they only have one neuron.”
– Jose Mourinho hails the brainpower of new signing McDonald Mariga, while implying that Mario Balotelli is a bit dense.
“I went to pick up my son who was playing with two friends and their parents thanked me because their children of seven-eight years went to ask them what a neuron was. I consider that a contribution to culture.”
– The Special Teaching One.
“How can my love for Italy have finished if I never had any love for it?”
– Mourinho again. Do you sense a return to England any day soon?
“I was thinking for the first 20 minutes ‘bloody hell, what have I done?’ I didn’t see the ball, it was in the air for so long.”
– Gary McSheffrey on his sky-high League One debut against Colchester after joining Leeds on loan from Birmingham.
