Planet Football

Today's other stories in brief

Growing likenesses

Ever since he grew that goatee beard during the summer, Liverpool players have, by all accounts, taken to calling Rafa Benitez "Max" - after one of Peter Kay's characters in Phoenix Nights. Certainly, the resemblance is uncanny, though others have suggested Benitez is now a dead ringer for David Gest, Liza Minnelli's ex-beloved. Decide for yourself, but honestly, we reckon they could be identical triplets.

Idle chat . . .

"Ninety-nine per cent of the letters and emails are supporting us and that's not bad. That's as good as Saddam Hussein did and he was fiddling the figures."

- Ken Bates on the backing he received for his battle to retain control at Leeds. Sounds like the one per cent would like Bates to come to the same end as Saddam.

Quotes of the week

"He is not going to be running around like a lunatic, but he never did that at the height of his career. With players like that, their feet never leave them."

- Scott Hiley on the star guest at his testimonial, Matt Le Tissier.

"He is a good, good, good, great goalscorer."

- Arsenal's Matthieu Flamini says a good, good, goodbye to the great Thierry Henry.

" I'm not looking to leave, but I'd love to play for another Premier League team."

- Bolton goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi commits himself to the club/issues a 'come-and-get-me' plea. Take your pick.

"I like to think Lee Bowyer will be a player to watch out for this season."

- Lee Bowyer, it seems, will be keeping an eye on himself between now and May.

Bianchi fares badly

Reddest pre-season cheeks? They probably belonged to Manchester City signing Rolando Bianchi, who scored on his debut against West Ham on Saturday. When he turned up for his first training session with his new team-mates he must have been mightily impressed with Sven-Goran Eriksson's summer shopping: Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, etc . . . yup, Bianchi's driver (presumably an evil Red who's still chortling to himself) dropped him off at United's training ground.

The new boys

"I won't saddle him with comparisons to Bryan Robson, Roy Keane and Eric Cantona because each player is different, but . . ."

- Alex Ferguson on . . . Owen Hargreaves. Seriously.

"It can only be stupid people who say I would sign players I did not know anything about."

- Sven-Goran Eriksson denying he knows as much about his new signings as we do.

" We have signed two young players, although one is younger than the other."

- Sven proving he knows as much about his new signings as we do.

" Gavin McCann will add stability to an already stable midfield."

- Sammy Lee admitting that McCann brings nothing new to Bolton.

"I've got a girlfriend so when girls approach me it's my friends who benefit from it."

- You have to assume Fernando Torres has enough mates to fill Anfield.

"I was watching the TV when all these Man City players were being introduced. And I must admit, I didn't have a clue who they were. I'd never heard of them before."

- West Ham's Mark Noble. He's familiar with two of them now: they scored in City's 2-0 win at West Ham on Saturday.

"I'm about as fast as me nana."

- Robbie Fowler on being asked if he'd inject a touch of pace into the Cardiff attack.

" I wake up every day and just think, 'Thank God that Roy Keane is my manager.' He just inspires you."

- Sunderland new boy Dickson Etuhu, all loved up.

Full houses for Fowler

You might recall that Manchester City fans once sang, "We all live in a Robbie Fowler house," which probably wasn't that much of an exaggeration considering he owns half the houses in Manchester and Oldham-ish.

Well, now he's at Cardiff the supporters there are assuming that Fowler will soon be adding to his property portfolio: "Robbie Fowler's magic, he's got a cracking shot, And when he signed for Cardiff, he said 'I'm buying Splott'. He bought up half the Valleys, and all the Gurnos too, and 40,000 Bluebirds said: 'I'm gonna live with you.'"

Quality.

Idle chat . . .

"What horrifies me is people who've made money out of property or biscuit tins telling a class act who's managing their club who they should be signing."

- Niall Quinn tells critics of Roy Keane's summer shopping where to stick their biscuit tins.

"Nobody in Europe likes England. England - who invented the sport - has never had any impact on world football. England at no time has had the love and support of Europe. For Europe, England is an irritant."

- Fifa vice-president Jack Warner suggesting he won't be backing England's bid to host the 2018 World Cup.

"Colgan, Colgan, give us a save . . ."

- As chanted by Barnsley fans at their goalkeeper Nick Colgan during a pre-season friendly. Note: Colgan plays for Barnsley. With friends like that . . .

"He's no mug and he knows what the club needs - he's done it at both ends."

- Damien Duff with an interesting insight on Sam Allardyce.

" Not only have they taken my arms and legs off, now they've cut my b***s off as well. It's laughable."

- Dennis Wise responding calmly to news that Leeds would start the season on minus 15 points.

Belarus get own back

We recall a few years back the Belarus women's team travelling to Ireland for a World Cup qualifier - by road and sea in a bockety bus.

If that was a marathon trip the journey taken by the Northern Ireland women's team to Belarus for a Euro 2009 qualifier recently reached epic proportions itself, with just a little misfortune thrown in. As outlined by manager Alfie Wylie, it went roughly as follows

Flight from Dublin to Prague was cancelled on Saturday morning . . . Squad eventually left for Heathrow at 9 o'clock that night . . . Got to their hotel late but had to be up at 4am to fly to Frankfurt . . . But instead they were put on a plane to Warsaw, which was delayed . . . Eventually reached Minsk but five of their bags were missing (they didn't turn up until Monday night) . . . They lost two players to injury in their first training session . . . Their planned hour-long session at the stadium lasted only 20 minutes when the Belarus squad turned up . . . Northern Ireland Lost the match 5-0 . . . But apart from all that . . .