Quotes of the week

"I felt my performance during 120 minutes of frantic football was good and it's just typical of a manager to blame the referee rather than look at his own side's shortcomings."

- Referee Paul Durkin has a dig at Tottenham manager George Graham after last weekend's cup semi-final defeat by Newcastle. Durkin's display was immaculate, of course, apart from that moment he missed Newcastle's Nikos Dabizas hand-passing the ball out of his own penalty area.

"Spurs fans? Try to think of it less as a cup final missed, more a Chas and Dave comeback averted."

- Shaft', a columnist in The Sun, encourages Spurs fans to look on the bright side after their cup defeat. He has a point.

"It's not true, mushy peas are not my favourite food."

- Ryan Giggs hits back at nasty rumours about his private eating habits on a half-hour special on MUTV, entitled Ryan Reveals All.

"I was offered him about four years ago when he was only 19. I remember watching him play in a game against Barnet reserves - he looked decent enough but this was just after I had all those problems with the Romanian lads and I thought the last thing I needed was a Ukrainian."

- Harry Redknapp recalls the time he turned down the chance to buy one Andrei "current top scorer in the Champions League" Shevchenko for half nothing.

"When Dennis Bergkamp had that last-minute penalty Arsenal had a great chance of going through."

- Alan Shearer offers an insightful analysis of the Arsenal v Manchester United FA Cup semi-final in his Newcastle Evening Chronicle column.

"I just set off."

- Ryan Giggs on that goal.

"On the Wednesday we played Inter Milan, we went into hospital Thursday and I had him 28 minutes past seven on the Thursday night."

- David Beckham recalls the exact moment he, er, gave birth to his son Brooklyn. God knows what Robbie Fowler will say to him if he gets wind of this.

"Bosnich thinks he's a comedian but no one else finds him funny apart from him."

- John Gregory after his goalkeeper wiggled his bottom at Robbie Fowler in Saturday's match at Anfield.

"White socks look brighter and good teams wear them. I tried it during the season and we played some good stuff. You feel better and the players wanted it."

- Newcastle manager Ruud Gullit after finally persuading Adidas to change his team's socks from black to white. And then they lost at home to Everton.