Quotes of the week"Rafa Benitez is taking pity on Newcastle - he's bringing on Dirk Kuyt." - An outbreak of naughtiness from Matt Le Tissier on Sky recently. Poor Dirk.

"Time after time he is tackled unfairly and often opponents try to indicate that he has dived. Of course, when Ronaldo is running at full speed sometimes it doesn't take much to knock him over, but . . . "

- United manager Alex Ferguson. We smiled too.

"I've always believed at this time of the season you get to see people like oranges - you squeeze them and some tend to capitulate."

- Watford manager Adrian Boothroyd on the juicy battle for promotion to the Premier League.

"I'm not looking for excuses but another 24 hours would have been nice to have prepared for the game. But that's about the only excuse if I'm looking for excuses, which I'm not, but it was a factor."

- Wrexham manager Brian Little, not one to make excuses.

"If somebody wants to buy Diego, he must murder me first. Diego will leave Werder only over my dead body."

- Werder Bremen chairman Jurgen Born dismissing suggestions the Brazilian midfielder will join Real Madrid or Chelsea next season.

Hopefully Jurgen's funeral will be well attended.

"I wouldn't give up on sex even if we won the league; some things are sacred."

- Deportivo La Coruna coach Miguel Angel Lotina after his midfielder Julian de Guzman promised to give up hanky-panky for a year if he scored against Real Madrid.

He didn't. Score, that is.

"The guy stroked my arse! It was an unacceptable moment. Who does he think he is? At the time I wanted to thump his face, but I held my dignity.

"But seriously - I am very masculine. He needs to take a hard look at himself."

- As reported by the Guardian, Boca Juniors defender Julio Cesar Caceres after an intimate brush with Diego Alonso of Gimnasia y Esgrima.

"Barca only can win titles with a strong Ronaldinho."

- Eh, Ronaldinho.

Van Bommel gets the stinky boot

MARK VAN BOMMEL has won many an award during his career, including Dutch Player of the Year in 2001 and 2005, but the Bayern Munich midfielder has an unenviable one to add to his collection after topping a poll in the German newspaper Bild:The Biggest Stinky Boot.

Granted, the name of the gong sounds much more impressive in German - Der grosste Stinkstiefel - and although we can't be entirely certain we're guessing it's the smelly version of the Golden Boot.

Anyway, Bild asked their readers to name the Bundesliga player they hated the most and van Bommel romped home with just over a quarter of the vote ahead of Karlsruhe defender Maik Franz, who will now have to revise his recent boast that he is the most loathed player in Germany.

Trailing back in third place was Oliver Kahn, who is clearly losing his touch. Hearty congratulations to all.

Lamb to the slaughter

ALL HELL broke loose, by the sounds of it, at the game between Ballymena United and Lisburn Distillery on Saturday, with the referee having to be escorted from the pitch by police after the 2-2 draw. The managers, Tommy Wright and Paul Kirk, had to be separated after having a slight difference of opinion on the game, in which Distillery equalised in the ninth minute of added time after Ballymena were reduced to nine men.

What particularly intrigued us, though, was the line in the BBC report referring to the crowd's involvement in the unfortunate scenes: "A chair, a bottle and a leg of lamb in a red bag are all believed to have been thrown (on the pitch) by angry Ballymena supporters."

A leg of lamb? That fella had some explaining to do when he arrived home without the dinner.

Ferdinand's secret is outWE'RE SURE Janice Lavender, mother of Rio Ferdinand, meant well, but she's really not helping him cultivate a fearsome image as a bone-crunching, hard-tackling, spine-chilling centre-half by revealing that he still has his Looby Loo doll from the days when he never missed an episode of Andy Pandy.

"Every time I go to his house I check it's still there," she said.

And it is.

More quotes of the week

"There we are trying to keep his feet on the ground and people are calling him into England squads. I don't think we have seen him (since), he has been on an open-top bus since he got to know."

- Gareth Southgate after Middlesbrough's 20-year-old defender David Wheater was called by Fabio Capello.

"They are like an animal who has sniffed blood."

- Roy Keane on Manchester United going for the Premier League kill.

"Every game in which we drop points is a big game. If we won would it have been a big game?

"We lost against Barnsley and it became a big game . . . in the league we haven't dropped that many points, otherwise there would have been more big games.

"Every game here is big. Every game we win is a normal game. Every time we drop points is a big game."

- D'you suspect Chelsea manager Avram Grant is feeling the big-game pressure? We too.