What you got cooking Damien- WE wondered if Damien Richardson read last week about neighbours calling the fire brigade to a Hampstead apartment after smoke was seen billowing from it. Cesc Fabregas, it seems, had a little trouble cooking his dinner, the Arsenal captain incinerating his meal, to the point where he nearly smoked his neighbours out of it.
Richardson could have related to the experience. When he was Cork City manager he had many a run-in with his microwave, setting off the fire alarm in his apartment block twice. “The neighbours were all standing outside so I just opened the door and told them it was alright, so they trundled back in in their dressing gowns, saying ‘Jaysus, we should have known Damien was cooking’,” he told us back then.
“After the first couple of times, a couple of explosions, I learnt how to use it. But I can tell you, it wasn’t much fun scraping carrots off the top of my microwave. I probably should have taken them out of the tin, but I like my food chewy.”
If Damien or Cesc ever invite you to a dinner party bring a fire extinguisher with you, just in case.
Quotes of the week
"The more you talk about it, the worse it is. He will read what I say in the paper and he closes up like a hedgehog. I know the psychology of players." - Giovanni Trapattoni on the prickly subject of Stephen Ireland.
"For me, it's not closed. I hope something can happen in the future. In other categories, the great champions, they come back. A great example is Schumacher, and Tyson. Okay, maybe for money. Schumacher not for money. Tyson? Maybe." - Trapattoni again, still hoping Ireland will put on his helmet and get back in the ring.
"We were aware of the problem beforehand. The seats in economy class had a 34-inch pitch, which is first class in some airlines." - An FAI spokesman, after taking out his measuring tape, tries to put a dampener on economy-seats-gate.
"They said, well, funnily said: 'We need the money', so that was that really . . . I could understand if I was getting sold for £200 million, it might make sense. But it was a bit strange." - Richard Dunne on why, eh, cash-strapped Manchester City sold him to Aston Villa.
"My team did well and we showed our heart. I'm so sorry, it's my fault. It hurts me. I don't know what to say." - Two-own-goal Kakha Kaladze.
Not very Christian to Stoke City
WE were reminded last week of Younes Kaboul’s reluctance to join Sunderland when Roy Keane tried to sign him from Spurs. “Younes wouldn’t join Sunderland even if there was an earthquake,” said his agent Rudy Raba.
Bayern Munich defender Christian Lell, it seems, had similar feelings about a proposed move to Stoke City, after the clubs agreed a fee for the player. How excited was he about the move? Well, he went missing, Bayern unable to track him down . . . until after the transfer window had closed. As one heading on the story put it, ‘Where the Lell were you?’.
Gerrard bucks the diving trend
“DIVING is something the England lads don’t do,” said John Terry last week, “sometimes we’re too honest . . . from our mentality and the way we’ve grown up it’s not something we’ve ever been into.”
Meanwhile, radio station TalkSport ran a poll to identify the “all-time biggest diver” in the Premier League. Didier Drogba, Cristiano Ronaldo and David Ginola filled positions three to five, confirming Terry’s view that it’s the ‘foreign lads’ who are in to this type of thing, but the battle for first place was close-run: Jurgen Klinsmann (35 per cent) won out, holding off the challenge of, eh, Steven Gerrard (29 per cent).
More Quotes of the week
"I think we're on the right tracks, I really do. The problem is, though, that if you sit on the tracks long enough you get run over." - Coventry manager Chris Coleman on the danger of his team not making progress.
"First Eduardo, now Luka Modric. This is horrible. I can only ask myself if it was really an accident. I'm close to thinking it was done to us deliberately before the England match." - Croatian FA president Vlatko Markovic wondering if Birmingham's Lee Bowyer fractured Modric's fibula for patriotic reasons.
"It's quite unbelievable – I had to check it wasn't April 1st." - Birmingham chairman David Gold doubting that Bowyer is that much of a bulldog.
"We regularly play war games online at night. It sounds stupid but we communicate just like we do on the pitch. We talk online at night in exactly the same way. Even the old ones get involved, it's a good laugh and something to do when you have to stay in at night and be good." - Stoke City's Liam Lawrence, joystick in hand, explaining where the team gets it fighting spirit.
Straight from horse's mouth
“The problem here is that the big clubs are stripping the small clubs of their youngsters. They are like Japanese fishing trawlers, just sweeping up everything in their nets. Right now some of these boys are just being traded like horsemeat.”
- Is Leeds chairman Ken Bates suggesting the Japanese find horses in their nets?
