“Joe is an outstanding talent, but there are other outstanding talents in that side: Damien Hayes, Kevin Hayes, Ollie Canning and Eoin Lynch all had great games. You don’t win anything with a one-man team.”

 

– Ballyhale Shamrocks manager Maurice Aylward on the youngest Canning and co after their defeat by a rocket-propelled Portumna last Sunday.

 

“This guy is small but he has the mental strength of a mountain.”

 

– ‘The Professor’ Wenger on broken-leg victim Eduardo’s two-goal FA Cup comeback against Cardiff. Which mountain might that be then?

 

“There’s two scenarios here. It’s an anagram isn’t it? If I get promoted I’m a god and if we don’t I’m a dog.”

 –

Wolves boss Mick McCarthy knows his three-letter words as well as a few fours.

 

“I’ve got 10 or 12 assistants whose contracts are up in June. How can a manager lead a project properly if the continuity of his staff is not secure for two or three years?”

 

– That helpless cratur, Rafael Benitez and his poor army of apostles. Not exactly a dime a dozen either, I’ll bet.

 

“Ferguson controls everything in this country – these are the facts as everyone knows.”

 

– The paranoid Spaniard on that well-known Labour supporter. Someone tell yer men in Number 10.

 

“Yulia superstitiously distrusts hairdressers in London [so] we agreed that I’ll fly over to London when necessary. I’ve changed his style from glamorous Vidal Sassoon to simple ‘streetwise guy’ and I had no complaints from him or Yulia.”

 –

Arsenal acquisition Andrei Arshavin’s hairdresser. From Russia with lots of mousse