Planet Football Best of the Season, Part 1

Say what? Part 1: "You takes your money, you pays your choice, sort of thing." - Tim Flowers

"Wolves will be like lambs to the fodder tomorrow."

- Dave Beasant

"Steven Gerrard wears his shirt on his sleeve."

- A Liverpool supporter on BBC Radio 5

"Maine Road was a great football stadium, but as time moved on it stayed where it is."

- Kevin Keegan

"He took it with a great plomb."

Gary Birtles

"I don't mind getting beaten but we haven't been beaten yet this season. In results we've lost, but in actual play we've been the better side."

- Stockport's Carlton Palmer after his side lost three in a row

"Chris Porter scored his first league goal last week, and he's done the same this week."

- Sky Sports' Jeff Stelling

"It is hard to imagine Crouch scoring his second had he not scored his first."

- From a match report in the Birmingham Post

"We didn't come here for a draw, or any other result."

- Chelsea's John Terry

One order of dim sums please

Bill O'Herlihy: "If you were to sum him (Denis Irwin) up in one word what would it be?"

Johnny Giles: "Model pro."

"For Celtic, scoring three goals is like scoring twice as many as two in Europe."

- Davie Provan

"I'm expecting much better results from Irish sides in Europe this season, and that's down to one thing: fitness and organisation."

- Noel King

Jon Champion: "The interesting fact is that of Arsenal's last 56 goals, Thierry Henry has only scored 12 of them."

Ron Atkinson: "Yeah, but he created the other 40."

"Wolves have got five home games left and I think they can get 18 points from them."

- John Gregory

These charming men

"I've had problems with him, because he doesn't talk to me. Mind you, he doesn't talk to anybody. Queer lad."

- Brian Clough on his son Nigel

"There's only one Sally Gunnell."

- Manchester City fans as Diego Forlan left the bench to warm up

"Bayern - Ha, Ha, Ha! The whole of Germany is laughing itself sick at you."

- German newspaper Bild Zeitung after Bayern Munich were knocked out of the Cup by a second-division side

"Would you buy a second-hand Saab off this man?"

- Ex-Chelsea chairman Ken Bates on Sven Goran Eriksson

"They've got the footballing brains of a rocking horse."

- Keith Curle on his Mansfield team

Call the experts

"Milner seems to be holding his shoulder, in the shoulder area."

- Graham Taylor

"The Waterford player's shot was on target, which is an important aspect of a player's shot."

- Damien Richardson

"If we'd not scored that second goal the score might have been different."

- David Pleat

"When a goalkeeper makes a save you have to see what would have happened if the ball had gone in to classify it as a great save."

- David James

"The finishing is something we need to sort out."

- Sammy McIlroy, after his Northern Ireland team had gone 1,242 minutes without a goal

The Tao of Claudio

"If it is the case that you need just a first 11 and three or four more players, then why did Christopher Columbus sail to India to discover America?"

"When it comes to using a meat knife I can do everything, so my players will have to watch out or I will come into the dressing-room and I will kill them. I am joking, of course."

"Why would I think that we will lose? You don't think that in one hour you are going to be dead, do you? You don't think you are going to go over the road and be hit by a bus. But then you wouldn't see the match anyway."

"I must say thank you to the media because you do a great job now. Before you kill me! That crazy man! I give you a good espresso. A small one. I am Scottish man!"

"Don't worry, everybody, I'm still here!"

Glowing tributes

"Robbie Fowler has been scoring goals like that since before he was almost born."

- Kevin Keegan

"I'd sell my granny if the price was right, but we'd be talking ridiculous money."

- Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd

"Makelele's is massive - it's big. Is he proud? Well, kind of. When we joke about it he just laughs, he doesn't flash it around like I would. I'd be everywhere."

- Frank Lampard

Foreign affairs

"I left a couple of my foreigners out last week and they started talking in foreign. I knew they were saying 'blah, blah, blah, le bastard manager . . . '. It's hard. I'd suggest a golf day but you ask a Yugoslav and he doesn't even know what golf is.

"I'd take them to the army camp for pre-season and my Serb player would shoot my Croatian and my Russian would be spying on everybody."

- Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp

"The Millwall player, Tim Cahill, he's played for . . . tell me the country, oh, you must know . . . he's played for an African country. Samosa, I think."

- David Pleat

"They are a team of immigrants . . . where are the players like Veron now? Is he still alive? Where's Petit and where's that full-back from Holland. What's his name? Bogarde. Is he still making films?"

- Pleat, expressing admiration for Chelsea's multinational mix

Say what? Part 2

"The man is United. Cut him and he will bleed red."

Alan Brazil on Alex Ferguson

"I do not want to tackle like a crazy man but if some player acts like he is fighting . . . you have to do something. If someone wants to give me a kick I will show him I am not his woman."

- Arsenal's Kolo Toure

"It's all square at the Oval."

- BBC Northern Ireland reporter

"To win or not to win, that is the question, as an Englishman by the name of William Shakespeare once wrote. He even looked like an old manager - sort of - and in a way, he was right."

- Real Madrid's Carlos Queiroz