PLANET SOCCER:BERTI Vogts is fast assembling one of the wackier managerial CVs in world football, with Azerbaijan the latest entry after his stints with Germany, Bayer Leverkusen, Kuwait, Scotland and Nigeria.

The German hasn't always enjoyed a chummy relationship with the media (eg, "If I walked on water my critics would say it is because I can't swim") so, after losing to Wales and then drawing 0-0 at home to Liechtenstein last week, we wondered how things were going.

Not great, to be honest, if this exchange reported in the Observer is anything to go by: "You journalists sit there, drinking, and expect us to win games 6-0. Incredible. We cannot land on the moon overnight - you are clueless idiot journalists. You want me to book the hotel in South Africa now! Christ. That's it from me. Over and out."

Quotes of the week

"I saw the players eating mushrooms before a friendly, I was stunned into silence for several seconds."

- Giovanni Trapattoni declaring war on our favourite fungus.

"I tell you one change that I've brought in is the use of DVDs of our opponents. That's a complete novelty for the Irish."

- Trapattoni again. All we need now is electricity to play the DVDs.

"I am religious and I take the Bible everywhere with me. There are many good pieces of advice for those like me in the Bible."

- Dimitar Berbatov. He should have a look at Alex 3:16: "When thou loseth the ball make a bloody effort to winneth it back."

"In the beginning when he was talking to me I didn't understand him. I always said 'slow down, Robbie, slow down'."

- Berbatov again, suggesting he didn't know what language Robbie Keane spoke when they first met.

"I'm going to check what he had for breakfast, something must have upset him."

- Alex Ferguson on Mark Hughes' claim that Manchester City v Chelsea is now a bigger game than Liverpool v United.

"I wouldn't go for a walk on my own around White Hart Lane. A lot of dark-skinned people live there. So naturally the crime rate is higher than anywhere else."

- Spurs old boy Sergei Rebrov's considered advice to the club's new boy, Roman Pavlyuchenko.

Throw your hat at it

THE results might have been much the same but life at Newcastle, it seems, changed quite a bit when Kevin Keegan took over from Sam Allardyce.

Big Sam, you might recall, loved his technology, so "an interactive whiteboard for tactical illustrations was put up in the dressingroom at great expense", according to the Daily Mirror.

Under Keegan? The costly gadget "was being used as a makeshift coat stand".

Love it, just love it.

City fans sheikh with delight

THERE were some rather heated exchanges in the readers' comments section of the Manchester Evening Newswebsite last week, with United supporters a touch slow to congratulate their rivals on their new wealth.

City fans, as you can imagine, were modest about their oil strike, especially this fella:

"There's only one Sheikh Mansour,

One Sheikh Mansour,

Just fill up your car,

And he'll buy us Kaka,

Walking in a Mansour wonderland."

Hammers a bit ham-fisted on line

GRANTED, West Ham had enough to be doing last week with a new manager to be installed, but they really should get to work on their website.

While their sponsor's name was taped over on the players' shirts for Saturday's game against West Brom, this ad was still highly visible on the website: "2009 Holidays . . . even BIGGER deals with XL.com!"

Yep, that'd be the tour operator that went bust last week.

The club did announce that they had suspended all sales of replica shirts until further notice but, again, the website hadn't caught up - Dean Ashton was still modelling the new shirt yesterday, with XL emblazoned across the front.

Or "the new Dicky Dirt", as they call it.

Cockney rhyming slang, we assume.

More quotes  of the week

"He's probably a small man, got small-man syndrome, thinks the world's against him. If he's vice-president (of Fifa) . . . God help us."

- Roy Keane wishes Jack Warner all the best in his effort to become Fifa president.

"May I remind you that a player's greatest honour is to represent his country in spite of the fact that you chose to walk away from yours during the 2002 World Cup after publicly abusing your manager . . . indictment that you will no doubt be proud of up to today.

"Poor Sunderland."

- And Warner wishes Keane all the best for the season ahead.

"It is the smell of blood that interests you.

"Thankfully the guillotine doesn't exist anymore because there are some among you who would have the malicious pleasure of sending me for the chop . . . perhaps it would be better if I had killed someone."

- French coach Raymond Domenech thanks the media for its support.