It’s a whole 21 and a bit years since Roy Keane was sent off for chucking an elbow in Jason McAteer’s direction during a Premier League game. Have the pair moved on from the incident? Have they heck. The last week alone ...
Keane: “He deserved it ... as usual, he had plenty to say for himself ... just because you play with someone doesn’t mean you’re mates ... he was one of these players who shoots their mouth off.”
McAteer: “Love it. Players shouting their mouths off!!! Funny. You can’t shut the clown up now. And no we weren’t team-mates because he never showed up and when he did he went home!!!! Please!!!!! Bore off.”
And:
McAteer: “I’d rather him come in here now and we say, ‘let’s just let bygones be bygones and be civil.’ Or we can get in a ring for a million pounds each and fight it out.”
Two decades on, that might just be the only way to end this. Get Frank Warren on the phone.
What a shower
Chile are having a miserable time of it in their efforts to qualify for the 2026 World Cup, sitting third from bottom of the 10-team South American table having won just one of their first five games. They need a top-six finish to qualify automatically for the World Cup, while seventh would put them through to an inter-confederation play-off. Anything lower and their hopes are done and dusted.
During their latest off-day, a 0-0 draw at home to Paraguay, manager Eduardo Berizzo got no end of abuse from the stands, so decided enough was enough and, come full-time, resigned.
As if all of that wasn’t enough to darken the mood of Alexis Sanchez, the player had another reason for feeling peeved: the state of the changing rooms in Santiago’s Estadio Monumental.
“There are three showers that don’t work so you have to wait to use the one that does. While I was stretching, excrement came up through the drain. A team cannot work like this. You ask yourself, is this the national team or a third division team?” Poor auld Chile, quite literally in the shi ... you know.
Word of mouth
“I had the opportunity to join Blackburn Rovers. I met with Sam Allardyce in Poland. But I couldn’t go because of the cloud. The flight was booked, but we couldn’t leave. That fact changed my life. If I had gone to Blackburn maybe I would have stayed there.” – Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski on his career being saved by the eruption of an Icelandic volcano back in 2010.
“I find out the players are on their Xboxes and Playstations leading in to matches – they’re spending, six, seven hours sat in one position, eyes glued to a TV. Then they’re trying to play a match the next day and wondering why they can’t concentrate. Come on.” – Queen of the South manager Marvin Bartley explains why his team is third from bottom of Scottish League One.
“It is true that Luis is a loyal Barcelona fan and it would be his dream to go there ... It is a top team and one of the best in the world.” – Luis Manuel Díaz, father of Liverpool’s Luis. Nice as it was to hear from the man after his kidnapping ordeal, some things are better left unsaid.
In words
“We respected our opponents – 14 goals is not bad.” – Cripes, imagine if Didier Deschamps’s France hadn’t respected poor old Gibraltar?
In numbers
10 – The number of nations already out of the running for 2026 World Cup qualification, nearly 1,000 days before it starts (Guam, Macau, Laos, Mongolia, Bhutan, Cambodia, Maldives, Brunei, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste).
More word of mouth
“I didn’t retire. I’m just leaving Shels. I’m not dead, thank God. But I’m getting closer to it.” – Noel King before his final game in charge of Shelbourne, Sunday’s FAI Cup final, insisting there’s life in him yet.
“You’re just scumbags. Always have been. Trawl through a load of messages until you find a couple of negative ones and then create an article. Most people thought the show was insightful and educational. Which is our aim.” – Michael Owen, just a touch peeved by The Daily Mail’s negative review of his appearance on Mic’d Up.
“It sounds harsh and horrendous but if you broke the rules, you broke the rules – just suck it up.” – Neville Southall with limited sympathy for his old club after that 10-point deduction for breaching financial rules.
