From knocking Liverpool off their perch to squeaky-bum time, a selection of sayings by the league's longest-serving manager
Sir Alex Ferguson celebrates with the OLD Trafford crowd in May 2011. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian
On Ryan Giggs "I remember the first time I saw him. He was 13 and just floated over the ground like a cocker spaniel chasing a piece of silver paper in the wind."
On Gary Neville "If he was an inch taller he'd be the best centre-half in Britain. His father is 6ft 2in – I'd check the milkman."
On Paul Ince "I used to have a saying that when a player is at his peak, he feels as though he can climb Everest in his slippers. That's what he was like."
On Italians "When an Italian tells me it's pasta on the plate I check under the sauce to make sure. They are the inventors of the smokescreen."
On the 1999 Champions League triumph "I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Football. Bloody hell."
On media criticism of Juan Sebastián Verón "On you go. I'm no fucking talking to you. He's a fucking great player. Yous are fucking idiots."
On Liverpool "My greatest challenge is not what's happening at the moment, my greatest challenge was knocking Liverpool right off their fucking perch. And you can print that."
On the 2003 title race "It's getting tickly now – squeaky-bum time, I call it."
On kicking a boot into David Beckham's face in 2003 "It was a freakish incident. If I tried it 100 or a million times it couldn't happen again. If I could I would have carried on playing!"
On Filippo Inzaghi "That lad must have been born offside."
On Arsène Wenger "They say he's an intelligent man, right? Speaks five languages. I've got a 15-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast who speaks five languages!"
On his former charges as managers "It can be difficult to pinpoint who would make it as a manager. For instance, nobody here thought Mark Hughes would become a manager, never in a million years, and we all thought Bryan Robson was a certainty to be a top manager."
On the referee Alan Wiley "The pace of the game demanded a referee who was fit. It is an indictment of our game. You see referees abroad who are as fit as butcher's dogs. We have some who are fit. He wasn't fit. He was taking 30 seconds to book a player. He was needing a rest. It was ridiculous."
On José Mourinho "He was certainly full of it, calling me boss and big man when we had our post-match drink after the first leg. But it would help if his greetings were accompanied by a decent glass of wine. What he gave me was paint-stripper."
On Rafael Benítez, reacting to the Spaniard's infamous 'facts' press conference "I think he was an angry man. He must have been disturbed for some reason. I think you have got to cut through the venom of it and hopefully he'll reflect and understand what he said was absolutely ridiculous."
On whether Liverpool would win the title in 2007 "You must be joking. Do I look as if I'm a masochist ready to cut myself? How does relegation sound instead?"
On Old Trafford "The crowd were dead. It was like a funeral out there."
On Gary Neville "If he was an inch taller he'd be the best centre-half in Britain. His father is 6ft 2in – I'd check the milkman."
On Paul Ince "I used to have a saying that when a player is at his peak, he feels as though he can climb Everest in his slippers. That's what he was like."
On Italians "When an Italian tells me it's pasta on the plate I check under the sauce to make sure. They are the inventors of the smokescreen."
On the 1999 Champions League triumph "I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Football. Bloody hell."
On media criticism of Juan Sebastián Verón "On you go. I'm no fucking talking to you. He's a fucking great player. Yous are fucking idiots."
On Liverpool "My greatest challenge is not what's happening at the moment, my greatest challenge was knocking Liverpool right off their fucking perch. And you can print that."
On the 2003 title race "It's getting tickly now – squeaky-bum time, I call it."
On kicking a boot into David Beckham's face in 2003 "It was a freakish incident. If I tried it 100 or a million times it couldn't happen again. If I could I would have carried on playing!"
On Filippo Inzaghi "That lad must have been born offside."
On Arsène Wenger "They say he's an intelligent man, right? Speaks five languages. I've got a 15-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast who speaks five languages!"
On his former charges as managers "It can be difficult to pinpoint who would make it as a manager. For instance, nobody here thought Mark Hughes would become a manager, never in a million years, and we all thought Bryan Robson was a certainty to be a top manager."
On the referee Alan Wiley "The pace of the game demanded a referee who was fit. It is an indictment of our game. You see referees abroad who are as fit as butcher's dogs. We have some who are fit. He wasn't fit. He was taking 30 seconds to book a player. He was needing a rest. It was ridiculous."
On José Mourinho "He was certainly full of it, calling me boss and big man when we had our post-match drink after the first leg. But it would help if his greetings were accompanied by a decent glass of wine. What he gave me was paint-stripper."
On Rafael Benítez, reacting to the Spaniard's infamous 'facts' press conference "I think he was an angry man. He must have been disturbed for some reason. I think you have got to cut through the venom of it and hopefully he'll reflect and understand what he said was absolutely ridiculous."
On whether Liverpool would win the title in 2007 "You must be joking. Do I look as if I'm a masochist ready to cut myself? How does relegation sound instead?"
On Old Trafford "The crowd were dead. It was like a funeral out there."
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét