Quotes of the week

"Forty-to-one at the start of the season for Aston Villa - the odds have obviously tumbled since then?"

"Forty-to-one at the start of the season for Aston Villa - the odds have obviously tumbled since then?"

- Match of the Day's Barry Davies asks Paul Merson for an update on Villa's odds for winning the League. (That's Paul Merson, the regular attender of Gamblers' Anonymous meetings).

"Because £12 million is all I could squeeze out of the Scottish git."

- Aston Villa manager John Gregory explains why he didn't hold out for the £16 million he originally demanded of Alex Ferguson for Dwight Yorke.

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"He's Arsenal through and through. The thing about George is that if you cut his arm, he bleeds red. But then again, so do most people."

- Comedian Paul Kaye (Arsenal supporter) reveals George Graham has blood in his veins. Shocker.

"I object to the reaction in England and the use of the term `crazy'. Somebody who is crazy gets a gun and kills people in the street. It's not somebody who shoves a referee. You cannot call me crazy for that."

- Sheffield Wednesday's Paolo Di Canio talks sense and puts things in perspective, unlike most of the British media last week.

"He only sees things through his own eyes."

- Di Canio's former manager David Pleat, who once described the Italian as "a bit of a gypsy".

David? Who else's eyes would Paolo see things through?

"My pride wanted me to carry on, but it was a losing battle with the supporters. I decided to quit when I was coming home from Oxford. We had lost 4-1, then I found that my car had been broken into for the third time. There I was, window smashed, driving down the M25 with the rain soaking me and feeling as miserable as sin after a bad defeat. I thought, somebody is trying to tell me something here."

- Ray Harford explains why he resigned as QPR manager on Monday. God love him.

"Casiraghi strikes for Chelsea as Liverpool go down by a goal."

- RTE Six O'Clock News headline yesterday . . . later corrected once someone told them Jamie Redknapp had equalised in the 82nd minute for Liverpool.

Mary Hannigan

Mary Hannigan

Mary Hannigan is a sports writer with The Irish Times