Planet Football: Because it's before the watershed we wouldn't dream of repeating what we read about Jose Mourinho in the Sunlast week - you know, the stuff about him having a mistress, that class of thing - but we couldn't help but think that this sentence could have been worded more carefully: "A pal of 34-year-old Elsa said: "They did very saucy things together. Mourinho is a very sexual man. He particularly likes making love to Sting."

D'you know, for a minute all we could say was 'De Do Do Do De Da Da Da'. Until we read "Hunk Mourinho lived up to his nickname The Special One", with the music of Sting playing in the background. And Bryan Adams too. Cripes, Summer of '69is hardly Barry White-esque, but, bless him, Jose always liked to be different.

Quotes of the week

"People always say it's a shame someone as talented as Ryan Giggs, or George Best before him, never played in a World Cup or European Championship and I don't want my name to be added to that list."

- The scariest thing is: we don't think Rangers' Barry Ferguson was jesting.

"I don't mind Lawrie Sanchez spending £25m of my money on players but in return I expect six points from the next two games. If I don't I'm going to send round the biggest bouncer we've got at Harrods to hold him down and shove a pepper suppository up his arse."

- Mohamed Al Fayed gives Sanchez a resounding vote of confidence.

"The way Ashley Young is built, he looks like a heavy shower could kill him."

- Martin O'Neill on his not-so-beefy winger.

"I don't like it when someone glorifies themselves . . . he takes himself far too seriously and thinks he is very important."

- Jens Lehmann on Oliver Kahn.

"Perhaps rather than talk about former colleagues, he should be grateful he has the chance to play in the national team while he doesn't play for his club. That has never happened before in the history of German football."

- Oliver Kahn on Jens Lehmann. Girls? Enough!

Savage brings down pilot

"Saddam Hussein's anti-aircraft batteries couldn't bring him down," said the Daily Mailof pilot Pablo Mason, but, by all accounts, Robbie Savage could - but not with a tackle from behind, as you might suspect. In yet another "you couldn't make it up" football-related yarn, Mason has been fired from his £90,000-a-year job with MyTravel airways after allowing the Blackburn man sit in the cockpit during a flight the club chartered back in August.

The former RAF pilot came through, unscathed, 23 bombing missions over Iraq in the first Gulf War, but hasn't survived his attempt to help Robbie overcome his fear of flying - allowing the player in the cockpit was deemed a breach of anti-terrorism rules by MyTravel airways, so Mason is now unemployed.

"I am quite aware of the threat of terrorism," said Mason, "but when there is no threat, as I judged there not to be on this occasion, I don't think you should blindly adhere to rules set by bureaucratic nincompoops. Rules are made for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools."

Robbie revealed himself to be gutted by the news, and said as much in a nice letter to Mason, but the pilot is appealing against his dismissal - which, funnily enough, is what Robbie has spent much of his career doing.

More quotes of the week

"Substitution for West Ger. . . . . . Germany."

- The man behind the mic at Croke Park on Saturday night.

"Sometimes I'd like to have a conversation with a friend in a restaurant without feeling I'm being watched. At this rate I will have to go on holiday to Greenland. But maybe the Eskimos would know me."

- Fernando Torres enjoying the fans on Merseyside.

"I will have to have a long hard look at myself and what I am doing here. After what I have seen in this match I am obviously doing something wrong."

- Wales manager John Toshack after the 3-1 defeat in Cyprus. Cheer up, Tosh, it could have been worse: like 5-2.

"I know I'm out of work, but that's a bit over the top, isn't it?"

- Neil Warnock to his wife after he saw her cutting a "10 per cent off" voucher from a packet of breakfast cereal. Mercifully, he was appointed Crystal Palace manager soon after, so Mrs Warnock can spend like there's no tomorrow.

"If England comes then so be it but I've played for them once and that will do for me. I'm more interested in domestic honours. People get carried away about playing for their country. It's always nice to be selected and it's always a privilege and an honour but I'd much rather be successful for Newcastle than I would for England."

- Sounds to us like Joey Barton hasn't got three lions tattooed on his chest.

Well-gnome full back

You might remember a few years back when Aston Villa full back Alan Wright was in his prime (he's now 36 and playing with Cheltenham Town) he had to endure the unkindest of mocking from opposing supporters because of his size - he was, and still is, 5ft 4ins. On one particular occasion, when he was playing for Villa away at Spurs, the White Hart Lane lousers broke in to "Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go" every time he was on the ball.

Well, another 5ft 4ins full back, Danny Jackman of Northampton, is going through a similar ordeal this weather. When Northampton played Millwall earlier this month this is how the Londoners serenaded the poor lad: "You're supposed to, you're supposed to, you're supposed to be a gnome."

Sabo not for the birds

We're noticing a perturbing trend amongst under-pressure managers: they're taking their frustrations out on any women they see scribbling furiously at their press conferences.

You might have heard recently about Sam Allardyce, the Newcastle United supremo, getting a bit grumpy with a room full of hacks, to whom he was trying to explain tactics. And when he spotted a female reporter in the room he gestured in her direction, he said: "Even you should understand that."

Well, in fairness she probably did understand Large Sam's tactics - after all, he does make Big Jack seem like Marcello Lippi.

Anyway, Dynamo Kiev manager Josef Sabo is at it too. When asked by a female reporter if he thought a performance by his team was "shameful" he responded thus: "Personally I'm not ashamed because I see how in a short time they have made very good progress, because I have taken them away from their women, from their wives. We went to the training base, because women in football are a scourge. They do not understand that men need to work, that they have a hard job to do."

And with that Josef dragged his woman to the cave, where she prepared him a tasty meal of braised Tyrannosaurus Rex with boiled spuds and turnip.