All in the game

Compiled by MARY HANNIGAN

Hitting high notes: Neville no stranger to mopping up

GARY NEVILLE’S rather, well, emotional response in the Sky Sports commentary box to Fernando Torres’s goal against Barcelona last week caused a bit of a stir, but it came as no surprise to his former team-mate in Manchester United’s youth set-up, Robbie Savage. Writing in his Daily Mirror column (look away now if you’re squeamish), he said:

“Your initiation ritual as a Manchester United apprentice involved being led into a darkened room where you had to pretend to chat up a mop and then get sexy with a treatment table while the other lads giggled in the background.

“So I can confidently say that I’m one of very few people in the world who’s has previous experience of hearing Gary Neville make the kind of sound he made when Fernando Torres scored for Chelsea the other night.”

Good. Lord.

Although, it’s a pity Roy Keane wasn’t a United apprentice, you’d have paid in to see him chatting up a mop

Harte reminds Trap he's Irish and second leading scorer: But he's not holding breath

"I was speaking to a few of the players and they said he [Trapattoni] did not realise I was Irish, even though I have played 67 times, scored 11 goals and am the second leading scorer in the squad. You have just got to laugh about it."

– Ian Harte, not quite holding his breath in anticipation of a Euro 2012 call-up from Giovanni Trapattoni.

"I laugh when I hear stories, 'Wolves have got relegated, people are going to come in and take all their players' — if they were so good they wouldn't have got relegated."

– Harry Redknapp. Hard to argue.

"Neither team has really taken the baton by the scruff of the neck and put their stamp on it."

– Nigel Worthington, metaphor-mangler supreme.

"We are facing a very difficult game with everything at stake. Shame on us. There is no excuse. A year without a title for a club like Manchester United would be a very bad year for everyone at the club. It would be a disaster."

– Good to see Nani's morale is high ahead of tonight's Manchester ding dong.

Letting bygones be bygones: Warnock ready to sign 'lowest of the low' Diouf

YOU might recall a bit of a spat between Neil Warnock and El-Hadji Diouf last year after an FA Cup match between QPR and Blackburn. While QPR's Jamie Mackie lay on the ground with a double fracture of his leg, Diouf was somewhat less than sympathetic, declaring: "F**k you and f**k your leg."

Warnock, then manager of QPR, was unimpressed, letting rip about the player after the game.

"For many years I have thought he was the gutter type – I was going to call him a sewer rat but that might be insulting to sewer rats. I think he is the lowest of the low."

He then forecast that Blackburn would soon let Diouf go – he was right – and he wished him bon voyage. "I hope he goes abroad. I won't miss watching him. Sign him? I wouldn't want to talk to him."

In a measured response to Warnock's criticism, Diouf told the Sun: "This guy Warnock talks a lot of s**t and everyone knows he talks a lot of s**t. He wants to put himself on the front page of the paper all the time but no one is interested in him. Every time we see him on TV he talks s**t . . . What has he done in his life? Nobody knows him."

Was he done? No.

"One day I will catch up with him and we're going to talk. If I see him face-to-face, he's going to know what I think about him. He said some things about what happened to the guy Mackie. But I was upset about what happened to him . . . I've got a heart too, you know? And what his manager said was s**t."

So then, let's fast forward to last week. From the BBC website: "Leeds manager Neil Warnock is preparing to sign controversial forward El Hadji Diouf – the man he branded a 'sewer rat' last year.

"Diouf's contract at relegated Championship outfit Doncaster runs out in the summer and he could be tempted to remain in Yorkshire with a move to join Leeds."

Diouf, too, is happy to let bygones be bygones. "I have the utmost respect for Neil Warnock and I'd be delighted to help Leeds gain promotion to the Premier League." You know, it's a funny old game.

Ukraine ruffle: It's all Dutch

DUTCH ENERGY Company NLE has ruffled a Ukrainian feather or two with a television ad that, it has to be said, borders on the peculiar.

It starts with a Dutch wife Googling pictures of Ukrainian women, while her husband watches a football match in the background, and on noting that the women are largely underdressed, she decides she must do all in her power to stop her husband from travelling to Ukraine for Euro 2012. So, she buys a beer tap for their home. That's it.

Olexander Horin, the Ukrainian ambassador to the Netherlands, was not amused, calling on NLE to withdraw the ad because – and we're paraphrasing here – it gives the impression that Ukrainian women don't own any clothes. "I'm anxious and dismayed that it could send the wrong image," said Horain.

We think he should lighten up.

Not the type: Terry keeps straight face on sending-off

"I'm not that type of player."

– John Terry on his sending off against Barcelona. He said it with a straight face, too.

"There are sections of the crowd who complain but it's why they come to the ground. These fellas get s**t off the wife all week and they come to football to let it out."

– West Ham's Kevin Nolan showing some manly sympathy to the Upton Park boo-boys.

"I'm not pretty like Beckham, but I do buy clothes, I do take care. I shave my legs with a little machine I have. I do it in team meetings."

– Brazilian megastar Neymar – what you wouldn't give to see him try that in a team meeting with, say, Harry Redknapp.

"Fulham haven't had a shot on target yet, which is probably why they aren't in the goals."

– No flies on Tony Cottee.

Seriously, we're not Lyon: French side lift domestic cup in their 3D football shirts

IF you tuned in to the French cup final on Saturday you'd have seen Lyon win their first trophy in four years when they beat Third Division Quevilly 1-0.

What you wouldn't have seen, though, unless you were kitted out in 3D glasses, were the 3D features in Lyon's shiny new shirt.

Seriously.

Adidas unveiled the creation last week, proudly declaring that it was the first 3D football shirt in history, and no one, you'd imagine, disputed the claim.

Without your glasses, the shirt looks like a bog standard effort, black with a few stripey bits, but with them it comes to life.

The team will wear the kit in Europe next season, but you have to buy your own 3D glasses if you want to see them in all three dimensions. As do their opponents.

Time warp: Ronaldo gives nod to oldies for Team GB

THE BRAZILIAN Ronaldo was in London last week for the draw for the Olympic football tournament and took the time to have a quick chat with the press.

"I think Team GB and Brazil will have the strongest teams," he told them.

"With the Premier League stars that you have it will be interesting to watch."

One of those stars, of course, is Tottenham's Gareth Bale, but, alas, when asked about the Welshman Ronaldo ignored the question because, it seemed, he'd never heard of the fella.

So, which young English players did he rate the highest? Note "young".

"Beckham and Lampard and the whole Man United team," he replied, giving a special mention to . . . Michael Owen.

According to this calculator, the three players' combined age is 101.

If Ronaldo keeps this up he'll get a job as a Premier League pundit.