Mary Hannigan's Planet Football: In light of the story he told about his last encounter with David O'Leary, at a pre-season Premiership meeting, we'd hazard a guess that Wigan manager Paul Jewell rather enjoyed Saturday's 2-0 win over Aston Villa. "Hope you stay up," O'Leary said to him at the time, to which Jewell replied: "And you too."
Fowler begins to feel his age
Robbie Fowler is only 30 but he's beginning to sound like a grumpy old man. In an interview with Maxim magazine he complained about the lack of respect young players show their elders these days.
"When I was a kid at Liverpool the senior pros would put you in your place and you'd really take it to heart," he said, "but I don't really think the kids care much these days - they just tell you to **** off."
And what of their fashion sense? "There's a young lad at City who's got a stone in his earring the size of a big glass ashtray. You know, like the ones you get in the pub. I don't even think it's a real diamond - I think it actually is an ashtray, to be honest. He's only young, but he'll learn, bless him."
We're not sure who Fowler's talking about but we've never seen Richard Dunne with an ashtray hanging from his ear so we're confident enough it's not him.
Quotes of the week
"In the long term our strategy is to build the most successful football club in the world and everything we have done so far is geared to this. I hope to carry this forward in the true blue tradition of Chelsea but also build even stronger foundations to last us the next 100 years."
Roman Abramovich. Good news, then, for Arsenal, Manchester United and the rest, Chelsea's domination will only last until 2106 - after that it's game on.
"I never doubted because with God all things are possible. It's like a gardener when he plants a seed, it doesn't bear fruit right away. You keep watering it and at the end reap the fruits."
Rangers defender Marvin Andrews on Trinidad and Tobago being a play-off win away from World Cup qualification.
"Robert (Pires) has been vaccinated for life."
Arsene Wenger, trusting that Pires won't try that penalty again.
"At the moment Abel is fighting his case elsewhere, hopefully it's positive. Next week we will have the results of his B-sample and something more positive."
Middlesbrough manager Steve McClaren, speaking about Abel Xavier's failed drug test, using the word "positive" in a rather unfortunate sense.
"I'd like to meet Wayne Rooney. I've been watching him and Manchester United recently and he's been having some trouble with his behaviour on the pitch. I could relate to what he was going through."
Mike Tyson offers to help young Rooney improve his behaviour. After which, presumably, referees will have to wear ear-lobe guards.
Marseille play mind games
It's not entirely uncommon for home teams to turn the heating off in the away team's dressingroom in the depths of winter, just to ensure that their feet are numb for the opening 20 minutes of the game. Marseille, though, were somewhat more inventive for the visit of Paris Saint-Germain for their recent league meeting, with PSG accusing their hosts of all kinds of funny business.
Two hours before kick-off PSG coach Laurent Fournier emerged coughing from the away dressingroom at the Stade Velodrome, warning his players: "Don't go in - you cannot breathe in there."
The French Football Federation is now investigating an allegation that the dressingroom had been filled with ammonia, although Marseille insist that the smell was simply a result of the work of hard-scrubbing cleaners.
Worse, though, was an alleged attempt by Marseille to take the visiting players' minds off the job.
"We changed in two 10-metre square rooms after half an hour sitting in the corridor surrounded by smoking stewards and Clara Morgane walking up and down," Fournier complained. And who is Clara Morgane? A French porn star.
Marseille, naturally enough, won the game.
More quotes of the week
"I miss it sometimes - the travels, the new countries and the teams you are playing. We sometimes went to what I would say are shit countries."
Charlton's Dennis Rommedahl pining for a return to the Uefa Cup - when he played in it before he discovered that all that travel broadened his mind.
"It's scandalous, inexplicable and disgusting."
Arsene Wenger, looking forward to the charity match between France and Costa Rica, for which half his squad will be called up.
"I can see myself returning as a head coach, definitely. I like good, educated clubs. If Steve McClaren should leave Middlesbrough they may call me. Southampton are relegated, but I could work there also."
The ever modest Tony Adams, whose managerial CV boasts a calamitous spell with Wycombe Wanderers - and nothing else. Say a prayer the FAI doesn't have his number.
"I turned up as normal but when I got there I was told I had the day off. I didn't know."
Rio Ferdinand after turning up for training the day after Manchester United's game against Lille - when the players had been given the day off. Thankfully Ferdinand had a break from football later in the week, in the 90 minutes against Spurs.
"There is a lot of room for improvement because we cannot play any worse than we did in this game."
Edwin Van Der Sar after United's draw with Lille - but before that draw with Spurs.
Klinsmann 'dancing' in US
You might have read recently of growing disquiet in Germany about the national team's prospects in next summer's World Cup finals - in a recent survey just three per cent of those polled said they believed the team had any hope of actually winning the World Cup.
Critics of German coach Juergen Klinsmann blame much of these woes on the fact that he stills lives in America, although he argues that because "the world has changed with modern communications it doesn't matter where you are physically - what difference does it make if I phone a player from California or Frankfurt".
The German Football Association hoped that Klinsmann's response would put an end to the criticism, which they politely described as "unhelpful", but it sounds to us like Bayern Munich's sporting director Uli Hoeness wasn't listening.
"The team is in the same catastrophic condition as the whole country," he said last week, "he should stop his dancing around in California while leaving us to deal with all the crap here."
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