Quotes of the week

"Forty-to-one at the start of the season for Aston Villa - the odds have obviously tumbled since then?"

- Match of the Day's Barry Davies asks Paul Merson for an update on Villa's odds for winning the League. (That's Paul Merson, the regular attender of Gamblers' Anonymous meetings).

"Because £12 million is all I could squeeze out of the Scottish git."

- Aston Villa manager John Gregory explains why he didn't hold out for the £16 million he originally demanded of Alex Ferguson for Dwight Yorke.

"He's Arsenal through and through. The thing about George is that if you cut his arm, he bleeds red. But then again, so do most people."

- Comedian Paul Kaye (Arsenal supporter) reveals George Graham has blood in his veins. Shocker.

"I object to the reaction in England and the use of the term `crazy'. Somebody who is crazy gets a gun and kills people in the street. It's not somebody who shoves a referee. You cannot call me crazy for that."

- Sheffield Wednesday's Paolo Di Canio talks sense and puts things in perspective, unlike most of the British media last week.

"He only sees things through his own eyes."

- Di Canio's former manager David Pleat, who once described the Italian as "a bit of a gypsy".

David? Who else's eyes would Paolo see things through?

"My pride wanted me to carry on, but it was a losing battle with the supporters. I decided to quit when I was coming home from Oxford. We had lost 4-1, then I found that my car had been broken into for the third time. There I was, window smashed, driving down the M25 with the rain soaking me and feeling as miserable as sin after a bad defeat. I thought, somebody is trying to tell me something here."

- Ray Harford explains why he resigned as QPR manager on Monday. God love him.

"Casiraghi strikes for Chelsea as Liverpool go down by a goal."

- RTE Six O'Clock News headline yesterday . . . later corrected once someone told them Jamie Redknapp had equalised in the 82nd minute for Liverpool.