PLANET SOCCER

Aberdeen fans soon privy to new buy:WHEN Aberdeen fans read in the Daily Record newspaper last week that their club had made "a big money" purchase from St Mirren they must, surely, have been enthusiastic. Until, that is, they read on to learn that the major signing was, in fact, the urinals from St Mirren's old Love Street ground, now being demolished to make way for a Tesco store.

“We have done very nicely out of it indeed,” said chairman Stewart Gilmour of the sale to Aberdeen, the headline on the article declaring that St Mirren were now “flush with money”.

Jeez.

Politicians not sad to see Arshavin go

IT was good to see Andrei Arshavin getting such a warm send-off from Russia last week when he left to join Arsenal, politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky particularly effusive with his best wishes when he declared: “Andy, why did you sell yourself to an English club? Now you will bring good feelings to England. England brings our country only harm. Our thieves run there and our fugitive oligarchs who stole money in Russia hide from justice there.”

Sergei Malinkovich, leader of the St Petersburg communist group, also offered a fond farewell, pointing to Arshavin’s “moral betrayal” and urging his female fans “not to love the insidious Arsh any longer – bite your tongue and forget about him”.

Whether or not his female fans abandon him remains to be seen, although his relationship with the drivers among them might have cooled a bit when he announced that “if I had it in my power to introduce a ban on women driving cars and to withdraw all their licences, I would do it without thinking twice”.

We’re assuming, then, that Arshavin’s beloved, Julia, doesn’t drive, although if she could she’d probably be speeding out of London as we speak.

“As far as London’s citizens are concerned, I didn’t like them at all. They are very dirty, scruffy,” she wrote on her website about a previous trip to the city.

“Often you see a woman in a street gobbling up a hamburger with grease dropping on her dress. English food is disgusting. It doesn’t taste good and the price doesn’t correspond to the quality. I didn’t like English beer, either. ” Uh oh.

Chris cross  

“I was gutted when it fell through, I couldn’t believe it,” said Manchester City fan Christopher Atkinson of the moment he learnt Kaka would not, after all, be joining the club.

Christopher, bless him, had a particular reason for being so down in the dumps – he’d just had “Kaka” tattooed on his chest, so sure was he the deal would go through. “I got carried away by the emotion of him coming here,” he explained. How difficult would it be to change “Kaka” to “Shay”?

A horse of a man

SPEAKING of Andrei Arshavin: he, apparently, wrote a book called 555 Questions and Answers on Women, Money, Politics, Football, which certainly beats, for example, Wayne Rooney: My Life’.

In it Arshavin shares with us all kinds of interesting information, none more fascinating than his worst nightmare: “I’m a horse in a field. And there are guinea pigs all around me – it’s a nightmare.”

O . . . . kay.

Quotes of the week 

“I haven’t got the word power of a Wordsworth, Milton or Chaucer, so I just told him he was brilliant.”

– Martin O’Neill after Emile Heskey wandered lonely as a cloud against Portsmouth on his Aston Villa debut, and scored the winner.

“Does it surprise you he opened his mouth? You go to a restaurant sometimes, you know why the fish is on the table? Because it opened its mouth.”

– Avram Grant, as quoted by BBC Online, with a rather sublime response to the criticism he received last season from Jose Mourinho.

“Ninety-nine per cent of two-footed players are right-footed, you don’t see many left-footed two-footed players these days.”

– Another BBC offering, this time from Joe Royle, one that left us dizzy.

“Who’s his agent? He should be knighted by the Queen.”

– Paul Merson on one of the more bizarre transfer window stories, Julien Faubert’s loan move from West Ham to Real Madrid.

“Liverpool are out of the FA Cup. And apologies if you missed seeing that decisive goal . . .”.

– A blushing Steve Rider after ITV cut to ads just before Everton got their extra-time winner on Wednesday.

“Charles is a mixed-up kid. He needs to grow up. And his agent is full of s**t . . . I can assure you nobody tried to stop him going.”

– Joe Kinnear less than distraught to see the back of Wigan-bound N’Zogbia.

“My dad has no interest in football. He used to come and see me play when I was six or seven but he hasn’t got a clue. He still watches me but he thinks I am a centre forward or something.”

– Dubliner Willo Flood who, his Da should know, has joined Celtic.

“He’s always scored goals wherever he’s been. To have a player like that around has given the lads a big lift. He’s got a massive head so we just have to try to find it.”

– Glenn Whelan on his new Stoke team-mate James Beattie.

“That’s why we tried so hard to get Craig Bellamy because we’ve got a lot of nice guys at the club and, no disrespect, but Craig Bellamy is not very nice.”

– Spurs coach Tim Sherwood. Bellamy joined Manchester City.