* Our manager:
"I've been in touch with José a couple of times now.
"I don't know if he will come back into the English game. I think José will end up at a top team in Spain or Italy, I'm almost certain of that. There certainly is no one on the radar at the moment obviously, he's taking a break and I think he's aiming to come back fresh."
"I was reading an article the other day where a club was talking to Brian Little and Brian has done great work in his management career at Darlington, Aston Villa, Leicester etc.
"He's been around quite a few clubs, Brian, but he's been out of the game for about three years now and you get forgotten about.
"It is ridiculous, but being out of the game that long is a handicap because with his qualities and his CV, Brian Little could quite easily manage 80 per cent of the clubs in England."
* The Indie:
Alex Fergusson made a mess of the CIS Insurance Cup semi-final draw yesterday causing the line-up to be altered some four hours after the original draw was made.
Fergusson, the presiding officer of the Scottish Parliament, muddled up the team's numbers on the balls for the draw and read out Rangers against Aberdeen and Dundee United v Hearts. With the draw seemingly done at 1.30pm, the clubs got on with the business of setting up the games only for Fergusson's error to be discovered and a new schedule announced by embarassed Scottish League officials at 5.20pm. The draw is - definitely - Aberdeen v Dundee United; Rangers v Hearts, with the ties to be played on 29 and 30 January.
"It's a total farce. I've spent four hours on the phone with Hearts arranging when the game would be played, where the game would be played and so on," said Eddie Thompson, chairman of Dundee United. "I'd like to know what the SFL have been doing for four hours between when the draw was made and when they notified us of the mistake. It was a member of the media who contacted me before I heard from the SFL and I thought he was off his head."
* O'Dreary has a pop at 'deranged' Ridsdale:
The Mail:
David O'Leary has branded Peter Ridsdale "deranged" for launching a smear campaign designed to restore his own battered reputation and blacken the name of the former Leeds and Aston Villa manager.
Ridsdale, one-time Elland Road chairman, is about to publish an explosive new book, United We Fall, which attempts to shift the blame to O'Leary for the club's descent into financial chaos and relegation to League One.
In particular, he alleges that O'Leary was in some way responsible for the huge payments he authorised to agents, most notably the £1.75million that disgraced agent Rune Hauge received as part of Rio Ferdinand's £18m move from West Ham to Leeds in November 2000.
O'Leary, who has already consulted his lawyers with a view to taking legal action against his former employer, is disgusted by the attack when all previous allegations made against him by Ridsdale were withdrawn in the settlement document that was signed in the wake of the Premier League arbitration agreement.
In that agreement, Ridsdale and, indeed, Leeds expressly disassociated themselves from the allegations that were made at the time and O'Leary received £4m in compensation after being sacked in May 2002.
"I signed a confidentiality agreement, which was incorporated in a Premier League tribunal order, and so did Leeds," said O'Leary.
"I have honoured that but I now feel compelled to defend myself against this deranged man.
"My dad rang me the other morning to tell me what had been written as part of the book serialisation in a paper.
"My parents have experienced the highs and lows of my career but the headline was very upsetting. To say I'd made a 'secret deal with a bung agent' is outrageous. It's nothing but a smear campaign."