Aiden McGeady recalls mystifying expletive-laden text from Unai Emery

Over the course of his 20-year career, his current club Ayr United the ninth he has played for, Aiden McGeady has had no shortage of high profile managers, among them Unai Emery, the current Aston Villa manager, for a brief enough spell at Spartak Moscow. While McGeady spent three and a half years at the club, Emery lasted just six months, poor results leading to his sacking.
How did the pair get on? Seemingly fine, according to McGeady, who told the Open Goal podcast last week that the Spaniard would regularly ring him and share his frustrations about the running of the club.
But a whole two years after Emery left Moscow, McGeady received a “random” text message from his former gaffer, one that simply read “‘**** you’ – with exclamation marks”. He showed it to his Spartak team-mate Nicolás Pareja, who was flummoxed. “He went ‘what the **** is all that about, is he raging with you?’ I said no, but I don’t know. I just wrote back to him ‘**** you’, then he wrote back again ‘**** you’. And then that was it done.” Mystifying. Unless Emery had the wrong number.
“I’ve let everyone down. Even my dog looked at me disappointed.”
It’s been ruff at home for Jermaine Jenas since he was sacked by the BBC for “workplace behaviour” issues.
“The first impression is that they are really good team players, really good characters … maybe a little bit too nice. Sometimes you need a bastard in your team. I am looking for him. Maybe we can develop him.”
Republic of Ireland gaffer Heimir Hallgrimsson on the hunt for a ruffian in green.
“After much reflection, I have decided not to return to the Belgian national team under his management. My lack of confidence in him would not contribute to maintaining the necessary atmosphere of cordiality.”
Thibaut Courtois cordially suggesting that he’d rather eat his gloves than play for Domenico Tedesco.
“My players are too naive or too poetic, in a league that is not poetic. They have to do what other teams do to us. They need to go on the floor. They need to stop the game. They need to simulate injuries.”
José Mourinho, bringing his brand of the beautiful game to Fenerbahce.
With five draws and one defeat in his six games in charge of Rapid Bucharest, there was a bit of an inevitability to Neil Lennon parting company with the club last week, just three months after he arrived. At least he left with the warm words of Romanian coach Eugen Neagoe ringing in his ears.
“I predicted Lennon wouldn’t last four games because he knows nothing about Romanian football. He actually managed six. Look, hats off to him for the trophies he won in his career, but remember he won them when Rangers didn’t exist. Celtic were playing alone in the Scottish league.” Kind.
Hat-tricks scored by Erling Haaland since joining Manchester City two summers ago, his goal tally now just the 94 in 101 appearances. (Reminder: he cost €35 million less than Antony).
By all accounts, 13 publishers – 13! – battled it out for the rights to Duncan Ferguson’s soon-to-be-published autobiography, which was written with not one, but two sports journalists, Henry Winter and Brian Doogan.
Ferguson’s promise to be “brutally honest” about a life that thus far has rarely seen a dull moment no doubt led to this level of interest, and if the blurb for the book is anything to go by, then, well, it’s lively.
“Riotously entertaining, Big Dunc chronicles Duncan’s experiences: the truth about his prison time, his partying with African princes and Liverpool gangsters, his fighting with burglars, how he made and lost a fortune, and how he turned his life around through football.” No wonder he needed two ghost writers.